2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Happy Thanksgiving! We dug deep into the bowels of the internet to find a little-known found footage movie with a fascinating pedigree. It all started 10 years earlier in 1989 with The McPherson Tape (aka U.F.O Abduction), which was lost to the world until it suddenly resurfaced within the UFO-tracking community as purportedly genuine evidence of a family’s alien encounter (it’s not).

Once TV news organizations got ahold of it 5 years later, director Dean Alioto was tasked with remaking it for Dick Clark Productions. It’s this 1998 version – just a year ahead of The Blair Witch Project – which showed on TV and fooled a generation of young viewers with some of their first exposure ever to found footage horror.

We ended up discussing both over Thanksgiving turkey this year. Dig into yours and enjoy this week’s find along with us!

Alien Abduction: Incident In Lake County (1998)

Episode 369, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, happy Thanksgiving, Craig.  

Craig: Happy Thanksgiving! Wow. Uh, it’s so exciting to, like, the holidays coming up and… You know, I don’t know. I have no idea what things are like where you are, but, uh, for the past several weeks, the leaves have been beautiful.

Like, the weather has just been so nice. It’s, it’s amazing. And, you

know, I’m on Thanksgiving break now. And then it’s only three weeks and like three weeks and two days or something until Christmas break. Yeah. It’s a glorious time. 

Todd: It is a nice The last three months of the year are quite nice, aren’t they?

Yeah, they are. We get Halloween, we do our Halloween thing, I always look forward to that. And then Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, although when I’m not in the U. S., Thanksgiving is Well, you know what? Even in China, there are a lot of restaurants in town that do, like, a super expensive, like, Thanksgiving meal or something.

That’s weird. Are there that 

Craig: many Americans in China for that to be like a 

Todd: I guess. In Beijing, not in China. In Beijing, a big city like that, there are enough to justify that. Sure, sure. Or just, you know, enough Americans to bring their Chinese friends along or Just curious other people sure, you know that kind of thing, but right now I’m actually in Vietnam on a little bit of a break We’re never in Saigon and it is about 80 degrees.

It’s in the 80s right now Wow close to 90s So it’s a very different what I left when I left Beijing A couple days ago it was actually, uh, getting pretty chilly. So, uh, yeah, I’m kind of bouncing back and forth as far as the weather goes. But there ain’t no Thanksgiving here, as far as I can tell. I can’t imagine why there would be!

Right. 

Craig: We talked about, I think at some point you said… Are we, should we do a Thanksgiving movie? That’s true. I feel like at this point, you know, we kind of question it, because we’ve done it for so long. Like all of the obvious ones we’ve done. 

Todd: Plus we’ve already done Blood Rage, and what’s the point of doing any Thanksgiving movie after that?

Oh my god, 

Craig: with, I was just gonna say, plus we can’t do Blood Rage every 

Todd: year. I would love to. I really think we could make this a holiday tradition. I mean. We’re eight years in, it’s not too late to start a Thanksgiving tradition of Blood Rave. There’s so much to be said about that movie. 

Craig: Maybe, someday, we’ll see, I don’t know.

Anyway, so, I would, but I like these traditions for the same reason that I like these holidays. Like, I just, I like tradition and, uh, I like it. So, I was like, yes, I want to do one. 

Todd: It also forces us to, like, really dig deep and seek out movies we would probably never think of doing. Just out of, you know, pure desperation, and I think that’s kind of how we found this one, right?

That’s why I picked this one. 

Craig: Both of us found the same list, I think. Like, I think we both just googled Thanksgiving horror movies, and we both found the same list, and we originally said we were gonna do Escape Room, right? Mm hmm, 

Todd: because it During Thanksgiving, kind of like we did Christy last year, right?

That also took place during Thanksgiving, but otherwise had nothing to do with the holiday. 

Craig: Right, right. And I’ve seen escape room. I’ve actually seen it multiple times because it plays on the free streaming services that I just leave on in the background. But I couldn’t for the like, I’ve seen it several times and I couldn’t for the life of me.

Think of what connection it has to Thanksgiving, and I still don’t know. Like, it may be, maybe somebody at one point mentions, Ooh, tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. I don’t 

Todd: know. Probably. 

Craig: But I was looking at that list, and this title came up. The movie that we’re doing this week is called, uh, Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County, and I think that I initially scrolled.

Right past it. Like, I don’t even think that I read it because the picture that accompanied it was like grainy and it looked old and cheap. And I’m like, I don’t want to do that. But I was really questioning our decision. I’m like, that’s not a Thanksgiving movie. So I looked back at the list and I read about this one and I was Fascinated.

And so I texted you, I’m like, bro, I really think that this one is going to be more up our alley. Can we do this? And you very graciously agreed. And I’m glad because I liked it. 

Todd: You love found footage. Did you hate it? I enjoyed it for what it was. Can’t say that by the end of it, I was like super impressed.

It’s funny because I feel like between you and I, I have this reputation of not liking found footage movies as much as you. Yeah, and I knew that. And I think that still stands, however… If you go back and you review the episodes where you have foisted a found footage movie on me, more often than not, I’ve actually really enjoyed it.

So, this I would put a little lower on the, on that list. I liked it for what it was. I, uh, the, the backstory on this movie, and the movie that it is actually a remake of, is incredibly fascinating, and for that alone I really liked it, and as a product of its time, I’m also impressed by it. However, watching it now, it was a little cringy, I thought, at times, and a little hokey.

I did not feel like the acting was very good. It, it wasn’t terribly convincing. There were moments where I was taken out of it. And I think some of that, a lot of that had to do with 

Craig: So you already mentioned that this is a remake. Uh, uh, so the, the same guy, 

Todd: Dean Alioto. 

Craig: Yeah. Okay. He shot. A film and, and, and like, it was this, this, uh, found footage, this, you know, of course, before Blair Witch, before found footage blew up 

Todd: 1989, 1989, 

Craig: I know.

Right. 10 years before. And so he shot this found footage film about this family who experiences an alien abduction, basically, by the end, and I think it aired on TV maybe once or something, but then it kind of got passed around on videotape, and people thought this movie was, they thought it was 

Todd: real.

Yeah, we got a. We got we got to talk a little bit about this because there’s there’s a there’s some great information about the we have to talk A lot about it 

Craig: Yeah, like because the plot of the movie is super simple. Yeah, but you and I both like I When I picked the movie I started doing a little bit of research about it And I found out that it was a remake and I found out that the remake was only about an hour long.

And so I emailed or texted you and said, Oh, it’s a, it’s a remake. I’ll probably watch both of them. And so then you were like, well, let me know the deets and I’ll watch both of them too. And I’m so glad we did, because that’s, I think is going to be. What is the most fun to talk about? It 

Todd: really is. Dean Alioto was an aspiring director, coming up to 25 years old, and he was really pissed off because he’s turning 25, and all the directors that he admired had already made their mark in cinema and directed their first movie.

By that age, and so he really wanted to make a movie, but of course he had very little, you know, means with which to do it. And a couple things inspired him. I guess he was on an airplane trip, and he was looking out the window, and he was kind of thinking, What if this is the last I see of the outside world?

Or what if I land and everyone’s gone? And he had also been reading Communion. Which was a book that came out in the 80s by Whitley Stryber, that claimed to be a Did you ever read that book? No. Do you know what I’m talking about? No. Oh my god. God, I’m so kind of surprised actually, as as You probably saw it though, like in the supermarkets and everywhere.

It was huge and like, uh, I don’t know, late 80s I think, 88, 89. It came out and it had the picture of the alien with the big black eyes and the bald head on the cover. I don’t know. I was just gonna 

Craig: say, like, now I’m thinking, oh, I vaguely remember that, but it may just be the power of suggestion. I don’t know.

It could be. I mean, that was so ubiquitous. That was such, like, a 1980s… And even into the early nineties thing, like the tabloids, the tabloids, God, things have changed so much since we were young. Like I know that you’re not even in the country anymore, but the, the grocery store aisles are like checkout lines used to be plastered with these tabloids and they were insane.

Right. And that doesn’t exist anymore because the 

Todd: weekly world news. With, like, just completely false articles about aliens and UFOs, it was just for entertainment. Right, but the 

Craig: big headed, like, big, black eyed aliens, like, that’s the classic image that you would see all 

Todd: the time. This guy pretty much invented that, like, This guy did?

I say invented, he claims it happened to him. Yes, no, Whitley Streiber. Whitley Streiber. Oh, okay. He wrote this book called Communion, it was all over, I was super taken when I was, when I was this age. Um, you know, late elementary, early middle school. With, um, aliens, and Loch Ness monsters, and, and, and Atlantis, and the possibilities of myth actually being true, and this was all I would devour at the library.

And when this book came out, and I saw it everywhere, I, I read it. Now, Whitley Streiber, even by the time he wrote that book, was a noted, uh, and successful horror author. He wrote two horror books, The Wolven and The Hunger, which both got made into movies. So, he, he’s not like some random guy who’s just trying to get attention.

And then he claimed that he was, uh, over a series of years, all of these crazy experiences with being abducted, and like an alien, one of these aliens lived in his house for a while. I mean, it’s, it’s really nuts. But, you know, there’s nothing to say about it except that this is what he claims and nobody can really debunk it because it’s just what he says happened.

And, uh, I read that book and it was crazy. But, the cover of that book and his description of the aliens, of being these… You know, sort of like, uh, with these elongated heads, with the round head, and the big black eyes that are like oval shaped and whatnot. That we kind of see as the classic aliens came from him, and that book, and the cover of that book, which he had a guy draw based on his supposed recollections.

And that’s what the aliens in this movie were patterned after. And so, he read this book, and he just kind of was like, I should do an alien abduction story. But I don’t have any money, he ended up getting $6,500 from some company called Indie Syndicate Productions Uh, to, to do something, and he decided he would just shoot it on video and make it look like video.

It wasn’t like he was trying to, you know, found footage wasn’t really a thing, as far as genre goes. There had been found footage movies before this, but that wasn’t really in his or anybody else’s consciousness. He just was like, I’m, I guess, out of necessity, I’m gonna use this brand new technology, which was 8mm video camera, which he was very excited about using, and, uh, shoot this as though it were happening, as though, and he put himself behind the camera.

It’s really wild to hear about the process of doing it, because again, he, he was, he had 6500 bucks to do this. He had a guy spend, um, a guy he met in Sacramento, named Bill Bowes, gave him 750 bucks and said can you please make a spaceship design for me, and he put this thing together as kind of foam thing with the like some platforms, he said it looked like garbage.

When I was out in the woods in the middle of the day and he was like, 

Craig: it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. That’s what the the original like when last night, so I watched the movie that we’re supposedly talking about today. And then last night. Late at night, Alan was gone, he was in a play, and he went out afterwards.

I was watching this late at night, the, the, the original, and I was like, oh no, this is a mistake. I, I shouldn’t be watching this because I think I like the original. Our long version better in large part because the video quality is so bad that it’s 100 percent believable. It’s more convincing. This looks like something that my dad would have shot with a huge ass.

on his shoulder, and it’s even funny to me, like, the original, uh, version is about an hour, like, an hour and five minutes, I don’t know, something like that, um, and it plays out basically… Almost entirely in real time. And it’s just this one guy with, you know, this new camcorder that he just got, apparently he’s using it for the first time and he has it the whole time.

And usually one of your big issues with found footage is like, why wouldn’t he put. The camera down, like put the camera down and I didn’t have that issue with this movie at all because I remember being 5, years old and my dad had that huge ass camcorder on his shoulder. Couldn’t put it down. Never. Oh my god, there are hours and hours and hours of footage of us.

That nobody will ever watch. Yeah. 

Todd: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I’m gonna come right out and say, I thought that the original was way more convincing than the remake. Way more convincing. 

Craig: Way more. In fact, in fact, out of context, I could totally understand how some people think it was real. Cause it feels real.

The newer one, it like, it’s, it does a pretty good job, but there are, there are so many cuts and stuff. Like it feels 

Todd: very edited and there’s so much cheese ball stuff in there 

Craig: and the, the original one is mostly uncut and it, it doesn’t feel scripted at all because people are just. Talking over each other all the time, like it just feels very organic, like it, it doesn’t feel scripted at all, it feels entirely organic, it feels not like a movie because people are just talking over one another, people are having inane conversations in the background that you can fully hear, 

Todd: yeah.

They seem to be mugging for the camera at times or like even having, making some of these comments because they know they’re being recorded, and, and this was entirely improvised. What he did is he wrote out beats. He was like, um, here’s what’s gonna happen here, you know, Uh, in, in this point and then this point and then this point and then they went through just sort of some rehearsal But he was like they don’t want to get too detailed, you know Just kind of run around and pretend you’re being chased by aliens kind of thing He said he thought I can just direct this from behind the camera and just basically by going Oh, God, look over there, or, you know, oh, shit, what’s that?

Craig: Oh, was that him behind the camera? He’s behind the camera. Oh, God, I didn’t even think about that. The director was playing the young, the 16 year old brother, because this is supposed to be shot by a 16 year old boy. He’s like the youngest brother in this family of three boys. We’re 

Todd: talking about the original, 

Craig: right?

Well, I think it’s the same in both, right? Like, there are three boys, and the youngest one is the 16 year old who still lives at home. The older two are both either married or coupled up. So, so that was, that was, uh, Dean Alioto behind the camera? Like, he was playing He was. 

Todd: He was. God, I don’t even know You know how he says, like, holy shit, like, 21 times?

Yeah. That’s him. So yeah, he was like, I could just direct this from behind the camera. I could like, I could kind of yell, Oh shit, what’s that? And then everybody kind of knew, oh, we’re moving on to the, you know, the next scene. Oh my gosh. Or he would turn his head to the side and be like, cue the aliens, like, you know, cue the lights or whatever.

And he had some guys out and around the house, you know, on radios who could, uh, turn things on and off and whatnot. And three kids, girls, little girls, who were about… Um, I think eight years old played the aliens who were, but yeah, everything was improvised. And so he just got improv actors. I’m just 

Craig: picturing this in my mind now, like I’m, I’m just picturing the scenario and I just think that is so cool, so cool that he made this movie, you know, with a big handheld camera on his shoulder.

And he was. Acting in it, but also directing from behind it, like, uh, right, I, I, I’m, I’m, I’m not going to give you too much credit cause I’ve never worked with you, but I know that you have shot films before and like, that just seems like such a 

Todd: cool approach. It’s pretty awesome. 

Craig: And it totally, it, it totally works.

And, and you said he hired improv actors. Now my biggest. Comparison, complaint, I don’t know what you want to call it, between the two movies, the mother in the remake, which is the one that we’re supposed to be talking about, sucks, and the mother in the original is amazing. She’s fantastic. She 

Todd: is. It’s so crazy because the actors in the original, pretty much none of them have any other credits on IMDb.

They never did any other films. I don’t know what they’re doing in the acting world, you know, since then. Right. But as far as film goes, they’ve got no other credits. And in the remake, these actors are experienced. They were at the time, and they are now. And the mother may be the most of them, which is so embarrassing.

She’s so terrible at it, but she’s Gillian Barber. And Gillian Barber has been all over television. In fact, she’s been in movies we’ve reviewed. She was in Needful Things. Jumanji. She’s poorly 

Craig: cast. She’s poorly cast. Yeah, she does not look like these people’s mother. She looks like she could be their sister.

Um, it just doesn’t work. And it’s interesting to me because in the remake. Uh, Incident in Lake County, they look like actors, and they feel like actors, whereas in the original, I totally 100 percent buy that this is footage of real people in 1989. 

Todd: Because in 98, he was specifically told by the studio, it was originally developed as Showtime, and then went to UPN, and he was specifically told by them.

Because this is a TV movie and it’s a bigger budget production, you have to have more better looking people, is what he said. Plus he had 1. 5 million to work with. Yeah. So, uh, you know, that was their direction. It would’ve been cooler, honestly, if he could’ve just shot it with a bunch of improv actors again.

It probably would’ve turned out better, I think. But anyway, yeah, so he did this, and uh, by the way, that Bill Bowes I was just mentioning, that was kind of his first thing on a movie, but then he went on to be one of Tim Burton’s guys. He worked on The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes.

He’s a production designer for the new Scooby Doo movies, and Fantastic Four, and all that stuff. That’s kind of interesting, for making that shitty, uh, not, shitty, I say shitty aircraft, but it doesn’t need to be good, because it’s grainy through a camera from a far away, and, and it looks great. So, uh, in the original it looks great, and in the remake it looks great, too.

Craig: Yeah, and I was, The camera work, what I love, it really applies to both, but even more so to the original. This all happens at night. In a single location in a home. And I do think we should talk about the plot. I’m just not super worried about it because it’s so simple. We can fly through it. But, um, especially in the original, this guy is looking at everything through a camera, but it’s nighttime and he’s looking outside and you can’t see.

Anything. And that is, that’s totally true to life. You couldn’t see anything. Even if you had a light on your camera, if you’re shooting into the dead of night, dark, no, you wouldn’t see anything. The only thing that you would be able to see, which is the only thing that this camera picks up too, is like, if there are other sources of light, the camera will pick that up like a light post or something.

Um, but I just loved, you know, you see. In modern movies, whether they’re, you know, shooting through a camera or, or, or not. Um, but you look into dark scenes and you can see a lot of what’s going on. And with these 1980s cameras, no, absolutely not. And I loved that. And it made it even more suspenseful to me.

There were times. Um, especially in the original when he was trying to look out of the window and I just kept like he kept like pulling the blinds apart and like looking out and couldn’t see anything. It’s pitch black out there. I kept thinking one of the aliens was going to be like down at the bottom of the 

Todd: window because 

Craig: they’re only like four feet tall.

Oh man. I mean, 

Todd: I’ll have to say like, And I think I’ve said this before, just because it’s realistic doesn’t necessarily make it fun to watch. And this was my complaint about the original. was that, even though I was convinced that these people were genuine, their banter, like you said, was perfectly realistic.

You know, like you said, the camera work was utterly realistic. I mean, to the point where, you know, when he thinks they’re aliens or whatever, like, the camera’s not gonna, is not really pointing at aliens at all, it’s pointing at the ground because he’s running away from. Uh huh. I mean, he’s, he’s working really hard to make it realistic, and it shows.

The end result is like most of what we’re seeing is shaky cam of of people’s legs and feet When anything interesting is happening on the screen, you know, I’ve said this before, you know I did not like the brother which project when I first saw it and that was kind of my complaint there too was Camera shakes everywhere whenever there’s something interesting.

We can’t see it. And I know that was a lot of people’s Things that they thought was so brilliant about the movie. Oh my god It your imagination fills in the gaps and I was so freaked out. That just wasn’t my reaction at all to the Blair Witch Project That wasn’t 

Craig: my reaction either my reaction to that is what I imagined as I was watching this especially the first one, but People felt, some people felt about the second one, too, the same way.

Some people really thought that this was real. There are people out there who still think this is real. There are people, there are people out there who think that the government paid this director to make a remake to divert attention away from the fact that the original is real. It’s hilarious. Even though when it was originally aired.

It aired with credits that, you know, credited the actors with their character, you know, it made it very clear that these are actors playing characters. There are still people who think this is real, but when I was watching it, because I had read, Um, reviews. So I went to the IMDB page for Alien Abduction Incident Lake County and I read a lot of reviews and a lot of people were like, give it a shot.

It’s really good. Don’t believe the bad reviews, but there were several angry reviews that were like, this isn’t the movie that. I saw when I was a kid, and that movie scared me to death and scarred me for life. And then I, I went and read the, uh, reviews for the other one and they’re like, Oh yeah, this is the real one.

This is the original. It’s way scarier. When I was watching it, I tried to put myself In the frame of mind, like, I don’t know anything about this movie. And I’ve told you, we’ve done the Blair Witch Project here. But for anybody who hasn’t heard that episode, Alan and I went and saw that movie when it first came out.

And when it first came out, they were marketing it as though it were real. We were a couple of big dummies who believed it was real and watching. And of course, you know, days after we had seen it, everything came out. I was like, Nope, just kidding. It’s not. Um, but, uh, watching it and believing it made it so.

Scary and part of what made it so scary was how real it felt and part of that was when something really scary happened, the camera would drop and they would just be running because that feels real. If the camera had stayed. On their shoulder by their head. If it had kept shooting and then that’s bullshit.

Nobody would do that. If you’re really that scared, honestly, watching the movie that we watch for the podcast, alien abduction, instantly County watching it. I enjoyed it, but then watching the original, I was like, Oh no, the original is better, but I think that’s because the remake is. It’s cleaner, it’s sharper, the actors feel like actors, and it is unnecessarily padded with stupid shit.

Todd: Yeah. Although, it’s true. Although, to be fair, the original also has its moments where I was just like, Please, can something happen besides us just watch this family banter back and forth? And thankfully, that was only an hour long. But, I, but, you know, like you’re saying, it, context is everything, and the thing that made Blair Witch such a phenomenon was because they had really taken advantage of the internet, right?

They had deliberately put up this website that, you know, with extra footage that they shot with people who were pretending to be… Experts and, and, you know, they were really trying to blur the lines actively as part of the marketing and promotional campaign for the movie. They even told the actors to lay low.

Yes. Although one of them was like, on frickin still, still on TV in commercials for, uh, what was it, Steak and Shake or whatever? I don’t know. Right. Still. Like, that was that. In this case, this was before the internet, and the reason this thing got a reputation for being real, and I’m, I’m talking about the original, in night, that was put out in 1989, is that it showed once, it had a movie premiere, and, um, the director, Dean Alioto, really did not have high hopes for it.

So his plan was to put it straight to home video. And the distribution house that had his original tapes, And even the artwork for the posters and the cover art and everything literally burned to the ground and took his whole movie with it. And so, he and everybody thought, well, that’s it then, and he’s like, I almost didn’t even care.

He’s like, I got my first movie out of the way, I got the experience. And then about five years later, after he had kind of forgotten about that, was moving on to other projects, he gets a call from some guy representing Hard Copy, Encounters, and Unsolved Mysteries. Uh huh. Three different places, and this guy’s name was Sean Morton, and he said, Hey, do you know anything about this found footage?

And he’s like, this was the first time he’d even heard the term found footage. Uh, he said that he found, this footage was found, and his, his name was on it, and all these shows wanted to get the rights to it. And, did he have anything to do with this alien video, and he’s like, yeah, I made this thing. And then Sean Morton was like, do you know what’s going on with it over the past five years?

And apparently, a couple of videos, so the distributor would send out pre release videos or whatever to mom and pop video stores around the country, um, just to kind of show them. Previews and VHS copies and some joker took one of the copies edited out the credits and this went around it for five years in the UFO community as a real thing and the director was like, God, I wish I had been smart enough to do that.

Craig: Yeah, he even comments on it in the, in the movie because in the, in the remake, there are like all these. intercuts, uh, with like professionals, like anthropologists and psychologists and whatever. And I think one of them is a filmmaker who is played by the director, and he ends his brief interview by saying, he’s like, it couldn’t be a hoax.

But if it was a hoax, I should have directed it. 

Todd: It’s hilarious, by the way, almost every one of those interviews was so unconvincing. They’re 

Craig: dumb. And that’s another thing that I didn’t like about the new movie, which I feel like we should run through the plot real quick. But what, one of the things that I didn’t like about it, it was, it was clearly cut for commercials and also clearly cut for these interstitial, like.

Interviews and I, I don’t know if that was supposed to add to the realism, but for me, it just made it feel more like a production and fake, uh, and 

Todd: fake. Right, right. People are not convincing. He’s the worst of them all. He’s a terrible actor. As far as that goes. I 

Craig: thought he was funny. I thought he was douchey.

Like he was a perfect douchey. So that’s true. Um, but okay. So plot wise. What happens is, in, in the movie that we watched for the show, uh, Alien Abduction Incident Lake County, they are celebrating Thanksgiving, and this movie is Thanksgiving through and through! Like, there is a Thanksgiving feast on the table!

You made a good choice. 

Todd: They come back to it, they cut turkey from it several times. Oh 

Craig: my gosh. Yeah, in the original, it’s just the little girl’s birthday. The big differences between the original and the new one are that in the original, it’s the little girl’s birthday, and this one at Thanksgiving, um, there are a couple of extra characters in the new one, um, but other than that, they follow the exact same plotline.

With the new one, just throwing in some silly 

Todd: things. There’s a couple additional things though, as far as how they encounter the alien, um. 

Craig: Not really, that’s exactly the same. So, they’re celebrating Thanksgiving, or a birthday, whichever one you’re watching. And, like, the power goes out. So, the three brothers go and check the fuse box, and like, the circuits are melted.

So, they go into the forest for why? 

Todd: In the original, there’s no good reason. There’s no reason they go into the forest, but God, they walk into the forest forever. And I thought it was kind of boring. 

Craig: In the remake, they think God cut that down, because I swear to God, they trek through the forest with nothing happening for like ten minutes.

Yeah, 

Todd: it’s true. And good thing it’s at the beginning of the movie, because you’d about turn it off by then. But I think in this one, if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t there some sparking or was that later? Some 

Craig: sparking I think it’s in both. Yeah, well, they also see like, even before the power goes out, they see a flash of red light.

And then the power goes out, and then when they’re out in the… There’s, I think maybe another flash of red light or a transformer explodes or something. I don’t know, but they, they go, the brothers all go walking through the woods and they find a spaceship. Yes. 

Todd: So funny. And the spaceship design is almost ripped off entirely from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It’s a big. Like, globular, like, round spaceship with a hatch that comes down and everything, it’s just sitting there. And in both of them, it looks pretty good. I mean, I was Yeah! I was actually impressed at this low ass budget movie. Well, it looks 

Craig: pretty good in large part because the the film is so low quality, like Mmm, 

Todd: and out of focus at times.

Craig: Yeah! Be well, because they’re shooting, he zooms way in. Um, because they’re at a distance, and it’s at night, and it’s dark, and so it doesn’t have to be amazing. I’m sure that pro I mean, props to the people who built that. It looks great, but up close, I’m sure it looked… Not amazing, but it looks great on the film, and then they also see these aliens walking around, which are clearly I can’t.

Honestly, people believe this was real. I know. First of all, why are we as a species? Like, we’re so conceited as to believe that if there is other life in the universe that it will be humanoid. 

Todd: Yeah, they’re gonna look almost exactly like us, with just longer fingers and a different shaped head. It’s ridiculous.

Also, wearing all black, otherwise. 

Craig: Yeah, like, like black sweatsuits and just these rubber heads. In the new one, they’re like… Conducting an experiment on a cow with like lasers lasers with lasers, but then the aliens see them and, uh, they run back to the house and they immediately panic and like they’re, ah, there’s aliens and they’re after us.

And like all the women in the little girl are like. What’s happening? What are you crazy? But I love that. Cause it’s totally like real life. Like if somebody came like, you know, I’m at Thanksgiving and some of my family goes, you know, for a smoke in the woods or whatever, and then they go back and they’re like, ah, I don’t think I would immediately buy in either.

But I, I like that. Um, the funny thing about. The original one, to me, was like the guys all freak out, but then nothing really happens for a little while. Forever. So they just go back to normal. 

Todd: Yes! They do this every time in the original. Like, it’s like after about 90 seconds, they all forget they saw aliens.

They just go back to bantering or… Playing cards, or pouring more wine, or whatever. 

Craig: Oh, and yeah, like that’s, like it’s mentioned in the original one that the mom is drinking more since the father died. Um, and then they kind of let it drop. Like, I feel like maybe there’s some things that you hear in the background.

But in the new one… The mother has a glass of wine in her hands at all times. It makes no difference Yeah, it makes no difference what’s happening. She always has that glass of wine 

Todd: in her hands. Oh, they make it They make such a plot point out of it that it’s obviously plotted. And that’s one of the things that took me out of the movie, is there are these little things, there’s these little bits of drama that Are too structured to be convincing and the mom, you know, it’s like early on the brothers have this conversation about, you know, I’m worried about mom, she’s been drinking more and then at convenient moments throughout the movie, they get to comment on her drinking and they get to have a little argument about her drinking, you know, it’s kind of that in this way, the original was way better.

And that’s the same thing with two of the other characters. I can’t remember. There’s some little fight that kind of doesn’t need to happen. You know, it’s like sometimes in movies where there’s some big event happening that everybody should be completely focused on and instead there’s gotta be some little character drama between two people on the side that suddenly becomes the focus of everything.

And that can at times come off as realistic, like Night of the Living Dead. Yeah. It’s kind of incorporated into the panic. Whereas here, it’s just like, oh, we’re in a quiet moment. Now, let’s show, you know, the tension between these two characters, uh, in this, what came across as kind of an artificial way to me.

Me too. 

Craig: But I felt like it was better in the original, like in, in the, in the newer one, it does, it just, it feels artificial, like, like the old, yeah, it does feel more scripted. And I believe that it was probably a similar process where he gave them beats and said, play them. But these are acts. And, and it almost, I don’t know if they, I have no idea how many shots they did of everything, but like, as soon as stuff starts going, the oldest brother in particular felt very much like a character.

Like as soon as stuff started going down, he was like, I’m in charge of this family now. Everybody listen to me, shut up. Shut up! He just kept telling everybody 

Todd: to shut up. Right. Aaron Pearl, who’s been in like a hundred plus movies and TV shows. And he was in the 2006 remake of Black Christmas, 

Craig: by the way.

Uh huh. It felt like an actor playing a character. Whereas in the original, everything was so chaotic and everybody was talking over one another. It just, it honestly felt very organic to 

Todd: me. It did. Well, cause nobody’s distinctive, right? There’s no like, oh, this is the strong one, this is the whatever, yeah, it’s just, they all feel like a family in a situation, yeah.

And 

Craig: so anyway, okay, so they come back home and like, I don’t know, the lights are still out and whatever, blah blah blah, but… Eventually they’re like, oh, it’s probably nothing, but then the aliens show up and like are like peeping their heads in the windows and stuff and they’re running around and, uh, like locking all the doors and locking all the windows and stuff, um, and in both versions in different ways, but in both versions they end up shooting one of the aliens.

Todd: Yeah, in the original they’re outside and they bring They bring it 

Craig: in! That was so dumb, but like, but I almost still kind of believed it, because I’m like, God, people are dumb. Well, 

Todd: in a way, in a way, shooting it outside and bringing it in made a lot more sense, because it showed that at least they needed to monitor or have some control over the body, you know, assuming it was dead, but not sure.

Like, when it shows up in the new one, and they go through this whole ordeal upstairs, you know, behind this door, and shoot, he shoots, there’s a laser that comes through the door that burns one of the guy’s hands, and then, so that prompts Curtis to blast his shotgun through the door. In a very unrealistic shotgun shot, by the way.

Yeah, 

Craig: makes a perfect little cookie cutter hole in the door. Yeah. 

Todd: Um, but then they open it up and the alien’s dead on the other side, and they decide to just close the door, and put a… thing in front of it, a piece of furniture in front of it, and then go downstairs. Now, the whole time I’m thinking, this alien got into that room, presumably through a window in that room.

You saw multiple aliens outside. This is the way they got into the house. Why are you just closing and forgetting about that room that they got in with, from? Either drag that body out, or close the window in there. I mean, this room is important. Yeah. For you to secure your house. And they’re just like, alright, well we killed it, and it seems to be dead, so let’s close the door and also block it.

And then they go downstairs and kind of, more or less, go about their business. I 

Craig: get it. I mean, they’re still scared. They’re freaking out. Like, the phone doesn’t work. The lights aren’t on. At some point, like, the aliens also, like, affect, like, their watches stop. The electricity goes out. The phone’s not working.

At some point, the… Uh, appliances all, like, freak out, which was something that they added to pad the 

Todd: time. They go out to get the truck, um, and the truck battery’s totally melted. Um, and then their idea is to go get the tractor battery for the truck, and so they’re arguing about who’s gonna go out and do that.

Craig: Yeah, the guys are going in and out, and at some point, like, the two oldest brothers go out and don’t come back, um, and they, they never come back, um, and, and, and the rest of them are freaking out. The big di another big difference between the two is that in the remake, there’s something shady going on with that little girl!

What is that all about? Like… It seems, it seems like she knows something that the rest of them don’t know. I don’t know if the aliens are talking to her, but she just keeps saying, You guys, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. Just, that’s 

Todd: so strange. Everything’s gonna be okay. She says everything’s gonna be fine.

She’s constantly reassuring them. Then she’s trying to get upstairs to see the alien multiple times. Yes! And they just bring her down. And then she sits down and plays the piano. Again, another totally scripted moment. Where right when she’s in frame at the perfect time, and something’s happening in the foreground, she sits down in the background and starts playing like this beautiful music apparently on the piano.

But, but she’s 

Craig: not though, right? Like, Yeah, I 

Todd: couldn’t hear it. There’s a lot I couldn’t hear and I couldn’t understand that. Is there stuff that… 

Craig: I think it’s, there’s something psychic weird going on there. I, if she’s playing anything… We couldn’t hear it. It’s a, we don’t hear it. The, the camera doesn’t hear it, but everybody else does.

And that happens several times. Same thing 

Todd: with a lot of noises she makes, right? It’s like they’re only happening to them. Right. Then there’s little fights happening and Rosie and everything. 

Craig: One of them dies, I don’t even remember, like, the, the, It’s getting, it’s getting really hot, and it’s getting really cold, and, And their 

Todd: burns showing up on their shoulders, 

Craig: and then they disappear.

They get like a mark, it looks like they’re branded or something on the back of their necks, And it’s excruciating for a few minutes, and the little girl Rosie’s like, It’ll only hurt for a minute! And then it stops hurting, like, how do you know, bitch? Like, what is going 

Todd: on? Well, it’s supposed to be creepy for us, but the weird thing is that nobody in the family, like, everybody forgets about that every single time.

Like, Rosie’s doing something weird, Rosie seems surprisingly calm, Rosie seems to know something that, you know, the rest of us don’t, Rosie’s oddly predicting when, you know, and like They, they kind of like gloss it over, and that’s what happens, there’s like a red, this is different from the original as well, there’s that red light that’s just running around the room somehow, it looks like somebody’s shining a red flashlight around, and it swoops around, and then it hits Renee, and she falls backwards, and she’s You know, laid on the sofa.

She starts like convulsing and then they’re like worried that she’s dead But she’s not because I guess Matthew is a doctor or something. Oh 

Craig: god. I don’t know I don’t remember who all these people were that’s that’s the thing that I didn’t like about this is they tried to throw too much in They threw in extra characters.

They threw in like there’s supposed to be some like stupid ass Racial tension in the beginning because one of the sisters brings home a black boyfriend. Yeah 

Todd: God that sounded so Fake. That was so crazy. And it doesn’t go anywhere. 

Craig: It’s 

Todd: dumb. It’s unnecessary. 

Craig: They also throw in a confessional, the, like the main kid, Tommy, who’s supposed to be 16 years old.

Doesn’t look anything like he’s 16 years old. 

Todd: To be fair. I think a lot of this in that confessional was one of them where he sets the camera down in the bathroom and sort of was like, you know, kind of like if anybody gets this tape in the future, this is what happened, you know, kind of kind of thing for posterity before they actually shot it, they did a run through of it like with the actors.

They said this happens a lot with movies. You just kind of do like a big run through and they’re even companies that just do this. Um, it came in at 45 minutes. Yeah. And so they had to write, I think he said he had to write 20 more scenes, basically, in a day. Yeah. Uh, to pad it out, and that confessional was one of them.

And I think that shows, you know, it, it worked better as a one hour. Yeah. And I thought even one hour was long. If I hadn’t 

Craig: seen the one hour, I don’t know that it would have bothered me as much, but like, the extra stuff that they threw in, like, they all start acting weird, and like, I don’t know, it’s crazy, but there’s one point where, um, one of the sisters, 

Todd: Boyfriends.

Yeah, that was Matthew starts just 

Craig: randomly making out with one of the other guy’s, wives, Linda. And like they, they, they start making out with each other. And then everybody’s like, what are you doing? And they’re like, uh, I don’t know. , I thought it was you. She 

Todd: totally felt like you. Oh my God. Can’t you see they’re messing with us?

I was like, really? 

Craig: No, it seemed, it seemed really dumb and disjointed. And it’s just a lot of like spooky things happening, like seeing aliens, not seeing aliens, uh, appliances turning on and off. But 

Todd: let’s be clear, you say a lot of spooky things happening. Yes. All these things happen in the movie, but they are incredibly spaced out.

Craig: I found they, well, especially in the newest. And in the newer one, I don’t know, honestly, like I, okay. So full disclosure, it was late at night last night. So I was a couple of drinks in the original one I found to be very tense. And I. Was kind of transfixed and like, what’s going to happen? Um, even though I had already seen, like, I already knew it was going to happen because I had already seen the original, but I was, I was kind of compelled because I could imagine.

If I had seen this on TV in 1989 or night, probably the original in 1989, I think I would have been scared. Uh, and, and people, you know, you, you read the reviews and people are like, this is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. I saw it was when I was a kid, it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. I get it. I think that I would have been scared if I had seen it as a kid.

Absolutely. And I liked it for that reason, and I, I honestly even enjoyed the remake. I did. There were silly things about it, but I did enjoy it. Um, I, I still don’t really understand what was going on with the little girl, and eventually they both end the same way. Somebody tells Tommy, the guy behind the camera, put the goddamn camera down, and he does.

And he puts it down and like, they all, they’re just trying to remain calm because the guys have gone out to get the truck, but they never came back. So they’ve just convinced or trying to convince themselves that the guys went for help. And so they’re just waiting. And so they sit down and play cards, which sounds so stupid, saying it out loud.

But really, what are you going to do? Like, yeah, what you would just kind of have to occupy yourself. I mean, at least until. Morning. But anyway, they sit down to play cards and like, I don’t even remember what, how the original one ended and it, or no, the, the new one in the original one, it’s positioned so that you can see kind of the front door and the aliens come in and they walk around the corner towards the family and, uh, one of the aliens looks at the camera and it goes out.

So do you remember how the original ends? We both 

Todd: saw the same version of the new one. Um, in the new one, there are two endings. There was the original ending, which… Oddly, happens in the middle of what we saw. I don’t know if that was an editing mistake or what. But, uh, it’s basically Tommy’s going around the house, and, uh, he ends up in a room and he swings the camera around and there’s an alien right in his face.

Suddenly it’s like he freezes, like the alien has frozen him or something. The alien seems to take the camera and swing it around so you can see that. And then, that’s it. So, oddly, that happened in the middle of the, of what we were watching, and that was weird that, I wasn’t sure what to make of that, because then it’s like, Tommy is now suddenly back downstairs, and he doesn’t say anything about it at all.

The alternate ending is that, uh, he sets the camera down, just like you said, uh, and they see flashes of red. And aliens start to come in, just like the original. And one alien comes in, and it sort of, like, approaches… Lauren, I think, or whatever her name was. And she’s almost hypnotized, and it follows her out.

And Tommy’s still kind of standing there, freaking out. And the mother is still there, kind of, like, just sitting. And then the second alien comes in and sort of grabs the mother. And starts to walk her out, and the third alien, which has been trailing behind, looks at the camera and raises a hand, and then the camera sort of flickers, and it’s done.

And then, like, 

Craig: uh, PSA comes up, like, if you have any information about the disappearance of these people, call this number, and then it shows, like, photographs of, of all the people. And then credits. Yeah. And then credits with no music. I don’t know. I liked it. I like, as I was watching it, I was thinking, I’m so glad we picked this for the Thanksgiving episode because it’s, I mean, they sit down and eat turkey and mashed potatoes, like in the middle of this alien invasion.

Todd: Exactly. Very, it’s, it’s 

Craig: so perfect for Thanksgiving. And I had never heard of this. At all. I knew nothing about it. And so, if you, listeners, uh, are like me, I so, like, watch this on Thanksgiving. Like, fill up on turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and, like, just unbutton your pants and sit on the couch. Ha 

Todd: ha ha ha ha ha!

Wait a second, where is this going, Craig? Take photos and send them to us? No, no, come on. What are you asking our listeners to do? You’re 

Craig: so gross. I, I, like, I, after a big Thanksgiving meal like that, I need to, you know, like loosen my belt 

Todd: a little bit. Oh, loosen up the belt. Okay. Alright, Al Bundy. And sit 

Craig: down and watch this movie.

I dug it. It’s not great. I’m not gonna try to oversell it, but I enjoyed it. And, it’s, it’s safe. Like. Your kids could watch this. Yeah. It could be scary, and like, if your kids are scared of things, or easily scared, and you don’t want them to have nightmares, then no, but there’s no violence, or gore, or anything, it’s just little kids running around in, uh, rubber alien masks.

They look so silly! Uh, but, I don’t know, I enjoyed it, I thought it was a fun pick for the holiday. 

Todd: It’s a fun pick for the holidays. It’s not too much of your time, especially if you watch the original, which I think is more convincing. I think as an artifact, it’s fun. There’s so much better found footage movies now that are way more convincing than either of these ever were.

I feel like we’ve kind of stumbled across another Ghostwatch, you know? Yeah, yeah! This, this movie that neither of us knew about, that nevertheless, once we posted the episode, you know, people were like, Oh, I remember this, and oh, when I was a kid I saw this, I was so freaked out, and it turns out, you know, there’s a whole subset of people, or a generation of people, who, you know, this had some effect on them when they were young, so I’m really anxious to hear.

Uh, what people have to say about it, uh, later. And, with no surprise, I mean, again, Dean Eliotto was in didn’t really know what he had, and didn’t really take it as seriously as he could have, but he said outright, he was like, I was looking to make a sort of video version of War of the Worlds, you know, this kind of, like, re report on an actual alien thing, so it’s cool.

That it had an effect, and God, man, one year before the Blair Witch Project, he had this remake of his thing from ten years ago on television, and the similarities, uh, are just, there’s another movie that I want us to do too, called The Last Broadcast, that also You know, similarly came out just a little bit before Blair Witch Project and, and was one of those earlier found footage horror movies that nevertheless didn’t get, uh, the marketing campaign or whatever that hit on the cultural zeitgeist like the Blair Witch Project did, but I’ve heard anyway really deserved it, but maybe even more so than the Blair Witch Project ever did, so.

Yeah, it’s it’s cool. It’s cool to have discovered this movie. It is a hundred percent of thanksgiving movie Uh, and it was uh, it was really fun to talk about and learn about yeah We’ve got another patron to listen to how about Neil?  

Neal: Hey guys, this is Neil in virginia beach I’ve been a loyal listener since around 2017 when my friend jilly recommended your show to me I started with monster squad and loved it so much that I did what many people i’m sure do and cherry picked episodes on movies I remembered and liked as a kid Then I graduated to episodes of movies I wanted to see but never got around to, and then finally I leveled up to being a completist and have now heard every single episode at least once.

Uh, because of you I’ve seen dozens of flicks that I wouldn’t have otherwise and also avoided some potential waste of time. I have submitted requests that you guys turned into episodes like the Once Bitten episode and Anna and the Apocalypse. Uh, I love your banter, your recaps are thorough and thoughtful, and most of all you just seem like two genuinely good dudes.

In terms of my own relationship to horror, when I was a kid, the first naked women I ever saw were in the locker room scene from the movie Carrie, so naturally, naked women and scary movies are two of my favorite things. I got a copy of the paperback version of Friday the 13th part 6 from a garage sale.

And that book gave preteen Neil nightmares for weeks. These days, I find that I’m enjoying my horror with at least a splash of humor thrown in. Stuff like Megan, Tucker, and Dale, Cabin in the Woods. Thank you for giving me a reason to look forward to something horror related each week outside of spooky season.

You guys are doing the Lord’s work. Looking forward to more. Happy 365th.

Craig: God, man. These messages are gonna, like, make me cry. 

Todd: It’s so cool to hear Neil’s voice. Another person who, you know, we interact with a lot, like, on the website and on the patron page and all that, he has commented a lot and we’ve had a lot of back and forth.

It’s so cool to hear his voice here. I know, he’s got a great voice. Yeah, it sounds like a great 

Craig: voice. He should do a podcast. Yes. Maybe… He should be on our podcast. Boy, seriously, Neil, he he’s not lying. He’s been around for a long time and has given us some great suggestions and some great feedback. And I, I, I really, I genuinely do enjoy just.

talking to you every week. And I also enjoy having something to look forward to. It’s something I do look forward to every week. I look forward to, um, seeing a new movie and, and talking to you about it. But hearing back from these folks, that’s, that’s what gets me. That’s 

Todd: pretty awesome, huh? I enjoyed being reminded of the locker scene from Carrie, uh, I think, I think that movie opens up, the very first scene in that movie is a fantastic shower scene with Sissy Spacek, and uh, I do remember as a kid appreciating that quite a bit, cause uh, I also share, um, similar hobbies as, uh, as Neal does.

Looking 

Craig: at naked chicks? Like, I don’t know if I’d call that a hobby. I don’t know, but thank you, Neal. That, uh… Thanks, Neal. You got me. It’s always great to hear from you. You got me.

Todd: Well, if you’d like to get us, or just drop us a note and, uh, tell us, uh, tell us what you think, or your favorite horror movies, your favorite episode, or whatever it is you want to comment on, it doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be heartfelt and sappy, you know, just, uh, drop us a line at our speakpipe, and, uh, you can find that probably the easiest just by going to ChainsawHorror.

com and, uh, clicking on the link on our website that says talk to us. And all you need is your computer that you already have, or your phone, and your web browser which you already have, and you just hit a button on that website, start recording, hit stop, and that will get sent straight to us, and we would love to hear your voices.

Your comments and a feature you on an upcoming episode, just as we have here with Neil. Also, uh, you can chat with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, Instagram. The best way to do that is just to Google two guys in a chainsaw podcast and you’ll hit all of those things. Drop us a note there, pass this podcast along to a friend, and consider, uh, supporting us by going to patreon.

com slash chainsaw podcast. Um, we have a lot of fun on that patron page, and also, uh, offer up a lot of goodies for those guys as well, every week and every month. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

With the premiere of The Exorcist: Believer, the 50th anniversary of the original film, AND the recent death of William Friedkin, there is no WAY we could let the year come to a close without covering one of the most notorious horror films of all time.

Long-time listeners of the podcast know and understand why we tend to shy away from covering such iconic films. What can we possibly say that hasn’t already been said about one of the most notorious films of all time? So we ended up with more of a celebration of the legacy of the film (as one of our Patrons put it) than a typical play-by-play review. But oh boy, was it fun to revisit this film after so long, and be reminded of just how good of a FILM it is overall – horror or otherwise. Enjoy!

The Exorcist (1973)

Episode 368, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig. Well, it has come to this, Craig, finally we are going to be doing The Exorcist. 

Craig: Finally, since you say you can quit bugging me about it every week. 

Todd: I don’t know why you say that. I’ve only been bugging you about it since William Friedkin died.

You, oh god. I haven’t wanted to touch this movie with a 10 foot pole. You know how you and I are. We don’t want to do these movies necessarily. Well, look, we want to talk about these movies. We love these movies, don’t get me wrong. But like, you know, our podcast isn’t generally focused on picking the most mainstream horror movies that are almost mythological and What are we going to say that isn’t already said about it?

And is this episode going to go on for four hours? You know, we can’t possibly squeeze in everything. We’re just going to have to scratch the surface and pick and choose. And, and who knows what the conversation is going to be like, because we don’t plan this shit in advance. So, 

Craig: uh. Right. No, you’re right.

We don’t avoid these movies because we don’t like them. It’s because we like them so much. And because so many people do that. Like everything has been said like that. People have said, well, why don’t you do troll 2? Well, because if you want to learn about troll 2 just watch that really fun documentary about it Like I don’t think feel like we have much to add to the conversation.

Yeah, what I will say is You did kind of wear me down on this one. I kind of dragged my feet on it, but Watching the movie again, and it’s been a long time. I’ve seen this movie many times, but it’s been a long time Watching it again. Just reminded me that this is really just an An amazing movie. Yeah. Like, horror or otherwise, it is an excellent film.

Yeah. And, in addition to that, because I know there’s so much to be learned and read about the things that were going on behind the scenes and, um, stuff like that, I really did a deep dive into this one. I’m like, if we’re, if I’m gonna do Well, let’s do it. Right. So, like, I read everything I could get my hands on.

I watched like five hours of documentary footage. And I learned some things that I didn’t know. So… Yeah, me too. Yeah. So maybe, maybe we can share with, uh… Our listeners, some things that they didn’t 

Todd: already know. Yeah, we can chip a little, a little bit away at that. I mean, it feels apropos anyway. William Friedkin, the reason why we’re doing it now, or at least the reason why it got on our let’s do it soon list, is because William Friedkin passed away in August of this year.

And so this is our tribute episode to him. He’s the director. Before doing this movie, The French Connection was a very big hit for him just before this. And before that, he was more or less a documentary filmmaker. Right. And that’s Interesting, because now watching The Exorcist with the critical eye, it was a lot more obvious to me how he had some of that sensibility.

I mean, it’s still filmed like a drama, but there is a certain sensibility in it that’s a little bit documentary, and that I’m sure we’re going to talk about when we talk about like, the cinematography and how the visuals are presented. And so that’s why we’re doing it. And also, you know, it is the 50th anniversary of this film.

I think I mentioned on an earlier podcast, or maybe I didn’t, that, uh, I was in Thailand about a month and a half ago, and while I was there, in honor of The Exorcist: Believer coming out, they were showing the extended director’s cut of the original movie on IMAX. And I… Wanted to see it, but I end up seeing three other horror movies instead.

Ha ha ha ha ha. So, what we chose to do today is not the original theatrical cut, but the extended director’s cut, which adds, I think, about, not much, like only about ten more minutes onto it. Interestingly enough, it’s not like ten minutes of gore. You know, that we’re missing. It’s not 10 minutes worth of shocking scenes.

It’s actually mostly 10 more minutes of drama, more or less, fleshing out characters and adding little bits in. This was the first time I had seen that. In fact, gosh, this is the first time I’ve seen the exorcist all the way through in decades. I know that the first time I saw it, I was a kid, I remember it very distinctly.

Because I was, uh, I mean it’s this notorious movie, everybody says it’s the scariest movie ever. So it gets this huge build up. And I think I rented it. And, uh, was in middle school at the time. And at this time I had my own TV in my bedroom. It was such a treat for me. And so I watched it late at night, by myself, on this television in my bedroom.

It utterly freaked me out. And then, coincidentally, about three or four days later, my youngest sister woke up screaming in the middle of the night with night terrors. And I don’t know if anybody out there has experienced this. I’ve only experienced it this one time in my life. But, uh, she woke up and the, my parents ran in the room.

I was like, what’s going on Hillary? And, and she was sort of half awake, half not like her eyes were a little open, but you could tell she was still asleep, but she walked into their bedroom. She stood there. My dad’s sitting on the, on the edge of his bed. He’s, he’s trying to calm her down. She’s kind of calm.

She stopped crying and she’s like, and then she just looks at a corner of the room and says. Daddy, it’s over there. Daddy, daddy, don’t let it get me. And my dad, the only time he ever has done this, laid a hand on her and slaps her in the face. Like, goes, Hillary, wake up! And I was sitting in the doorway watching this go down, having seen The Exorcist a few days before, shitting my pants.

That’s funny. So, uh, yeah, I remember this very well. My, my first, uh, introduction to this. And at the time, I thought, yeah, this is one of the freakiest, scariest things I’ve ever seen. Like, it just felt very real, like it could happen. It had the whole religious, uh, angle. I was very religious as a kid. So, like, it just kind of brought things to suburbia, in a way.

You know, it’s not these fantasies of monsters and Freddy Krueger who I was obsessed with, but this ordinary girl in this ordinary family who suddenly becomes possessed with a demon and none of the adults know how to handle it. And, uh, it’s pretty freaky as a 

Craig: kid. Yeah, I don’t remember my first experience with it.

I, I I think my parents showed it to me when I was, I don’t know, not, not young, but early teens. No, I would guess early teens, probably. Yeah. And I do remember telling them, or I remember them telling me, this is the scariest movie. It’s the scariest movie ever. And I did think it was really scary. I grew up Catholic.

I still attend Catholic services. That’s a whole other can of worms. But, um, yeah, I think that, again, just what you said, the fact that evil can infiltrate in the most unlikely of places where, you know, this, this little girl who, we will talk about Linda Blair’s performance, which I just think is great, because she’s, So sweet, almost cloyingly sweet, but Linda Blair can pull it off.

I I’m not annoyed with her. I find her very sweet and cute and, and for, for darkness and evil to be able to find her. And one of the, one of the things that I was. I don’t remember which, uh, I, I watched several documentaries. I watched the episode of Cursed Films on Shudder. I watched The Fear of God, 25 Years of the Exorcist, which came out in 1998.

You can find the festival cut of that on YouTube, and it’s like an hour and twenty, hour and forty minutes, something like that. I think it’s the most comprehensive. And then something else that just got released was there’s this guy who had been teasing on YouTube for like all of October that he had this special treat at the end of the month.

And what he had was somehow he had found a whole lot of unused footage. Like, almost an hour’s worth, and he cut that down to, I think, 40 minutes or something. And I watched that, and there’s a lot of never before seen stuff. You 

Todd: mean, like, behind the scenes footage? What do 

Craig: you mean? Yeah, behind the scenes footage.

Oh, no way. Yeah, some, but also mostly just footage that they didn’t use for whatever reason. Hmm. 

Todd: Alternate takes and things. 

Craig: Yeah, right. And they were also, like, editorial decisions. You know, some things that were cut. Because, you know, for whatever reason, to serve the story or whatever. But then when they, when they went back to do the, the version that we watched, the director’s cut, the version you’ve never seen, there were a lot of scenes that Freekin wanted to put back in.

But they, either the video quality or the auto quality wasn’t up to par, and they couldn’t fix it. Digitally, and he re if, if they couldn’t fix it, he didn’t want it in. Yeah. So, there were scenes that he wanted in, but that they didn’t put back in. And like you said, it’s mostly like dialogue, like there was an extended scene in the beginning of Chris and Regan touring Washington D.

C. Like looking at different monuments and stuff. Not in what 

Todd: we saw, but in what you’re talking about. Right. Yeah, more stuff. Right, 

Craig: right. Exactly. And, and there were other dialogue scenes, and yes, things shot from different angles. There were multiple versions of the ending. Um, the one that we see, which itself was originally deleted and has now been restored.

Um, there was even more of that. Oh, wow. So there was a lot going on, but Anyway, my whole point was, I heard a lot of really interesting perspectives about the movie, and one of them had to do with the religious element, and they, I heard somebody say that horror and religion really go hand in hand, and that’s why they work so well together.

He argued, That horror counteracts the secularization taking place in modern society because horror affirms the existence of good and evil and therefore the existence of God and the devil. And I had never thought of that, but that makes So much sense. 

Todd: Yeah, at a philosophical level it really does, right?

And, and also even, even if you really drill down, you know, so much of horror deals with the supernatural, so. 

Craig: Right. And we, and many people look to their religion for the answers to those scary things. Um, and so, these scary stories kind of keep religious, they, they, fuel the fire of, of religious faith.

That’s fascinating. Especially a movie like this. Because that’s another thing about a movie like this is the world had never seen anything like this. People didn’t know what an exorcist was. 

Todd: It’s really impossible to overstate what a, a bomb this dropped on the film world and just on society in general at that time in the U.

S. Uh, the movie was a phenomenon. Yeah, I 

Craig: mean, histo I mean, if you look into ancient cultures and stuff, you’ll see, uh, talk or imagery of, uh, possession, but it wasn’t a mainstream thing in modern society, and this was the first time anybody ever saw it. And, for many people, Catholics in particular, but potentially Christians and other faiths as well, they could look at this and believe it, like, this could really happen.

My religion tells me… That the devil exists. So that makes it tenfold scary. Right. If it’s something that really could happen to you. Cause this, these, yes, the mom’s a movie star. But, they have a very normal, you know, they’re presented as normal people. They love each other. The daughter is sweet. She likes ponies, and to draw, and to make things out of clay.

Um, she’s playful. And they’re playful together. And if it could happen to them… 

Todd: And you know what? It wasn’t until this viewing of it that I really internalized, because I was a lot younger when I really was paying attention to this movie. And so I think there was a lot in the movie that I didn’t pick up then, that I absolutely was glaring now.

And one of the interesting things is, this is I mean, a very upper class family, right? I mean, we say they’re normal, you know, whatever. Yes, they’re normal because they’re relatable. But, the mother is a movie star. They’re in They’re not in their home. They’re in, uh, D. C. They’re in Georgetown, um, in a rented place.

That I hadn’t realized until I watched it this time. And, you know, they’ve got people there to help them. They’ve got, like, an assistant. She has, like, a Cause movie stars have these, right? personal assistance. And sure, there’s a guy coming in to fix things. She’s got a whole staff. And so this is a woman with pretty much limitless resources, right?

Right. And that’s so important for the story, I think, because it really got to me like this time around, all of the build up to the actual decision. Maybe we need to look to an exorcism. And she exhaust. I mean, she convincingly exhaust Pretty much all of her other possibilities. Because she has the means to.

Right. I mean, A, because she cares about her daughter. But B, she has the means 

Craig: to. There’s so much I want to talk about. Yeah, the fact that she did have limitless resources. But, the idea She didn’t even know what an exorcism was. The idea of The idea to pursue an exorcism came from medical professionals.

Yeah, that was crazy. When they had nowhere else to turn. God, the movie is just so smart. It’s so well written because the medical professionals, they don’t believe. In the spiritual power of exorcism, but they very much believe in the psychological power of suggestion, and that is fascinating, too. It is.

Because I believe that. I, I totally 100 percent believe that some people can convince themselves that they are possessed, and that it would take some sort of outside suggestion To rid them of that delusion. Yeah. Does that make sense? It, 

Todd: yeah, it has to meet the delusion where it is. It has to kind of like say, okay, yes, alright, so you’re possessed, so here, we’re gonna come here, and we’re gonna do this ritual.

It’s rooted in belief, right? If the patient believes it, then you’ve gotta… Uh, use that belief to convince their mind that, uh, you’ve cured them. In a way, it’s kind of like a, in cold stark medical terms, like a placebo. You know, why they actually work, right? Right! And so, it actually makes perfect sense. And it’s so interesting that it’s brought up by the psychiatrist.

Do you have any religious beliefs? No. What 

Craig: about your daughter? No. Why? Have you ever 

Todd: heard of exorcism?

Well, it’s a 

Craig: stylized ritual in which the, uh, rabbi or the priest try to drive out the so called invading 

Todd: spirit. 

Craig: It’s been, uh, pretty much discarded these days except by the, the Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an embarrassment. But, uh, 

Todd: it, uh, has words. In fact, 

Craig: although not for the reasons 

Todd: they think, of course, it’s, it’s purely a force of suggestion, the, uh, the victim’s belief in possession 

Craig: is what helped cause it, so in that same way, the 

Todd: belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear.

The other thing I thought was interesting since we’re on this topic, this is a particular time period, and I think we’ve talked about this before because we’ve seen this in other horror movies. Where psychiatry is still kind of looked at very skeptically. People are called shrinks. In this movie, instead of jumping right to the mental and the psychiatry, they are first going to the medical.

Even when the medical isn’t showing results and isn’t giving them the test results they expect to see, like they’re getting no evidence, still, like, the doctors want to medicate her and try that. first before going to psychiatry, whereas it seems like today the attitude is almost flipped, right? We don’t want to prescribe, like, the doctor prescribes Ritalin for her, which was kind of funny, uh, to hear that coming out in the 70s.

I didn’t even know Ritalin was a thing back then, honestly. 

Craig: I know, it surprised me too. I thought it was a thing that came around in like the 90s, or 

Todd: the… Hey, correct me if I’m wrong, but nowadays, you know, a person’s going through like a tremendous psychological change, which she goes through. It’s almost like a complete personality change, as her mother describes it anyway, and they’re beside themselves as to what to do with it.

It seems like going and talking to a therapist or psychologist would be the first step, and medication would come as a kind of last resort, in a way. Don’t you think? I don’t know. 

Craig: I think we’re big pill pushers in America. I do think that, I do think that there’s more focus on counseling, but I think that…

Medication is often a first. 

Todd: Maybe I’m just an idealist. Yeah, I 

Craig: think you are. You might be right. You are. But I wanted to just briefly, because that, what the doctor says, and ultimately the the church confirms it just using different words, the church says you have to have faith for it to work. If you don’t believe it won’t work.

What the doctors and the priests are saying are the exact same thing. Mm hmm. If you believe it, and she believes it, it can work. And that just, uh, it just kinda had my head spinning. Again, I’ve seen this before, I’ve thought about these issues before, but I wrote this down because I didn’t want to forget.

To talk about it, I personally believe in God. Now, I have very conflicted feelings about organized religion, but again, different show. But, though I believe in God, I honestly don’t think that we as human beings have the capacity to conceptualize what that really even is. So… Because of that, I think that faith is super, super powerful, and I think that they’re right, they’re all right.

I think that if you believe something enough, then that can have actual, potentially even physical consequences or manifestations. 

Todd: I think it’s more or less scientifically proven to a certain extent this is possible, right? It’s 

Craig: wild. The concept for this story even, William Peter Blatty was the author and he wrote this story out of desperation.

He was a comedy writer. That’s so funny. The work dried up and he couldn’t find work. He said, well, I guess I’ll try something else. He attended Georgetown and had heard a story. of, uh, an event nearby that he was inspired to write this book by. Uh, apparently, uh, a 14 year old boy in a nearby town had started acting strangely.

Uh, there was some poltergeist, uh, activity. The same kind of stuff you see… And his parents weren’t Catholic. I think they were Lutheran, and so they originally, you know, tried one of their own religious leaders to help, and that went terribly wrong. And so eventually they turned to the Catholic Church because, I guess, Catholics are the exorcist du jour.

Todd: Right. They give it gravitas. It worked 

Craig: then. Yeah. And so he was inspired to write this story. He did. Yeah. And have you read the book? I have 

Todd: not, and I’ve always been curious to read it, but no, I haven’t. 

Craig: Have you? Yeah. It’s been a long time ago, um, and I don’t remember a lot. I, I, I feel like the movie is pretty faithful.

There were side characters that you learned more about, um, like, for example, At the party, the one that Regan comes down. By the way, what is her name? Is it Regan or Regan? Because I feel like different people called her different names throughout the whole movie. It’s 

Todd: true, as somebody called her, yeah.

Everyone, I can’t remember what her mother calls her, but yeah. One of the doctors very specifically calls her Regan. Other people calling her Regan. It’s R E G A N, but yeah. How do you pronounce that? Either way, I guess. She probably answers to both. 

Craig: Probably, and that’s kind of a real life thing when you have a name like that.

And maybe that’s why they didn’t correct it. Maybe they wanted it to feel authentic. I would believe that. But that, that scene where Reagan… Comes down her mom’s having a party and she comes downstairs and she says to a man you’re gonna die up there in the book There’s a whole story about that guy That guy’s an astronaut and he’s gonna be going up into space in the next couple days And you may even find off some payoff about that.

I don’t remember But that’s the only reason I knew who that guy 

Todd: was There was a blink and you miss it line at the party was there where it was alluded to that Yeah, he that he was uh, he was an astronaut. Yeah, 

Craig: gotcha So he wrote it, and then, I think that part of the reason that the book is, or the movie is so faithful to the book, is that Blatty wrote a screenplay, but he felt like within the confines of a movie, he was gonna have to do a lot of compressing.

And so he said that he compressed the first third of the book way, way down. And he delivered the script to Friedkin, who, by the way, he picked because… Of his documentarian background and I believe that Friedkin, uh, he, if I remember correctly, I was looking through my notes. I can’t find it. I have six pages of notes.

I think Blatty specifically wanted a director who was not only not catholic but agnostic. He wanted there to be a balance. He wanted it to be presented like a documentary, not leaning into the mysticism or the agnosticism too much either way. And Freeking got the script, and he was like, bro, what did you do?

Like, I wanted to film your book. Like, when I was reading your book, I was… my head. That’s what I want. And so they got back together and they started working at it and Friedkin would say, let’s take a look at this scene. What can we do with this scene? And they would flush it out and they ended up reinstating a lot of what he had originally excised.

Some of it stayed out, like doing the, you know, touring DC, that stayed out, but. A lot of it got put back in. Let it be known, 

Todd: like, like, movie productions are never that simple, right? There’s always other people being considered and things like that. I think Arthur Penn, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Bogdanovich, all those people were at one point considered for directing this.

The studio even hired a guy, Mark Rydell, but Blatty really pushed for Friedkin and, and, and got it. Because, like you said, and he, they were already acquainted. And I think something that I really enjoyed from watching the documentaries… Where it has interviews both with them and with them together. Such a treasure to have these kinds of things.

Just to see the process, you know? The collaborative nature of this work and where people agree and disagree. It seems like, on the whole, these two guys were… True collaborators, like, sometimes a director will just take a script and just make it his own and go off, and the writer’s hardly ever involved again, and then the writer can be frustrated if things don’t turn out the way they do.

In this case, there were instances that, uh, you know, choices that, um, Friedkin made that Blatty did not agree with. But, made peace with over time, or are part of the restored extended cut. At least they talked about it, and they both have convincing arguments, you know, why this should or shouldn’t be in there.

You just do get the sense that, despite these two guys probably having some, some flat out fights and some bickering during the creative process, you look at them now, and, and they seem to be genuinely pretty happy with what… 

Craig: Yeah, oh yeah. I mean, and this was a, a hot ticket. The book had been really popular and, and I think that, you know, they started work on the film soon after the success of the book.

Big name people were interested. Like, um, Blatty wanted Shirley MacLaine. for Chris, which I can actually see. I think she could have pulled it off. The studio wanted, uh, Jane Fonda, Audrey Hepburn. They really wanted Audrey Hepburn, but she would only film if they would do it in Rome. Um, or Anne Bancroft. And I, I think that it came, Jane Fonda basically told them to f off.

She was, you know, right, uh, off the heels. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She was anti establishment anything. Yeah. She didn’t want to work for some big studio. Ellen Burstyn called Friedkin. She knew him. They were familiar. And she called him and she says, I want that part. And he said, I don’t know. The studio really wants these other folks.

And she said, I just, I really have a strong feeling that this is my role. And they kept in contact and eventually he said, look, it’s down to you and this one other woman. Are you going to see her? And he said, Yeah, I’m gonna see her. I’m going to New York to see her tomorrow. And then he called her back the next day, and she said, Did you see that woman?

And he said, No. I ran into her in the deli last night, and she looked like hell, so I canceled the meeting. And Ellen burst and said, Billy, that’s not fair. I look like hell when I’m at the deli and he said, Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. And that’s how Ellen Borsten got the role of Chris McNeil.

And she’s brilliant in it. And I had to look it up. But she was 40, 41 when the movie was filmed. Which I also like. I don’t think that this would, I mean, she’s still very beautiful and glamorous, and she’s a movie star in the context of the movie, but she doesn’t look like a fresh faced starlet. She looks like somebody who’s lived a little bit, and that’s the other thing, something else that I hadn’t considered.

I always remembered that there was no dad around, and going into this movie, I was like, where is Reagan’s dad? And they do address it. I think that they’re at the beginning of Of a separation or a divorce And reagan’s dad is out of the picture. I think he’s in rome. He’s overseas somewhere I assume he’s in the film industry as 

Todd: well Well, her mother is still very prominently wearing a diamond ring on her hand.

Yeah, I don’t think they’re divorced. 

Craig: I think they’re Getting divorced. Yeah, because it’s also suggested that uh, ellen burston chris Maybe seeing other men At least Reagan thinks so. Right. You can bring Mr. Dennings if you like. Mr. Dennings? Well, you know, it’s okay. Well, thank you very much, but why on earth would I want to bring Burke on your birthday?

You like him. Yeah, I like him. Don’t you like him? Hey, what’s going on? What is this? Huh? You’re gonna marry him, aren’t you? Oh my God, you can’t have me married, Bertennings, don’t be silly, of course not. Where’d you ever get an idea like that? Bet you like him. Of course I like him. I like pizzas too, but I’m not gonna marry one.

You don’t like him like Daddy? Reagan, I love you, Daddy. I’ll always love you, Danny, honey, okay? Brooke just comes around here a lot because, um, well, he’s lonely. Don’t got nothing to do. No, I heard differently. Oh, you did? What did you hear? Hmm? I don’t know. That doesn’t really go anywhere. But she may be or maybe not, but it really struck me this time.

She’s very frustrated. She’s trying, you know, there’s a scene where she tries to get her husband on the phone because he hasn’t even called Reagan on her birthday. And, and she’s so angry at him. But it really struck me this time. This woman is facing this on her own. The only thing that she can do is to reach out for help because she…

And I say alone. Fortunately, she has a staff, a very loyal staff, who stand by her through this insanity. Which is almost unbelievable. She must pay them really well. Yeah, right. Or they, or they really care about Regan, which I could buy. But she’s alone. And what, what a terrifying thing to face alone. And, and it’s her, her child.

But ultimately she says at one point that she knows that that thing up there is not her daughter. And I, I think that the stakes are very high. I think that she’s fully aware that she might lose. 

Todd: Well, I felt this way even when I was a young kid seeing this movie. I still feel this way now. I feel like this movie’s really about her.

I think the emotional center of the film is her. It is her struggle with, uh, what’s going on. Her looking and searching for answers. Her at the end of her rope. You can see the frustration and the fear in her face, and so much of this movie there’s no exercising going on. Right. In fact, the exorcism is, is almost like a footnote at the end.

It’s the last 

Craig: 20 minutes. It’s so small. I paid attention because I had said when we did Exorcist Believer, I had said, I thought that this exorcism went on for days, and it does not. No. It only goes for maybe like an hour, but I do stand by that Reagan’s This progression is more disturbing. But also more gradual.

Yeah. And, uh, I think that that’s more effective. Those girls in Believer just, boom. They were, they were possessed. 

Todd: Well, I don’t know. I mean, I think if you were to, like, take a frame by frame, like, second by second, minute by minute comparison, they’re pretty close. Like, you take the amount of time we spend with Regan, and the amount of time we spend with those other girls, Well, the one girl particularly.

It’s kind of about the same, like the amount of time we spend with them before they get to the exorcism. The difference here is that the time that we do spend with Regan in the beginning, she’s with her mom. True. Like, we see the mom and, and, uh, Regan dynamic, uh, very deeply. In fact, it’s kind of an interesting choice, but smart, where I would, I think about half of that.

We’re going to be seeing a lot of Reagan in bed later possessed. Even 

Craig: when she’s healthy, she’s in bed most of the time. 

Todd: Exactly! That’s my point, right? So it provides a really great contrast. In the beginning, we see this sweet girl who’s like laughing at her mom and kind of joking with her about this guy that she thinks maybe she’s dating or whatever.

Asking just little silly little girl questions. Not silly, but little girl questions. Typical stuff. She makes some art downstairs and shows it to her mom, and that’s about it. There’s not a lot. Like you said, they did shoot more. They didn’t end up including it, but it’s effective enough. 

Craig: Yes, but I don’t know.

I just, uh, She is, I think a lot of it comes down to Linda Blair’s performance. By the way, I agree with you about it being Chris McNeil’s story. However, I find it ironic that they bench her almost completely in the end. Oh, right. For 

Todd: the 

Craig: exorcism. For the third act. And, remind me to come back to Linda Blair.

I really want to talk about her for a second. But, they shouldn’t have benched her, because they set out to present this exorcism in the most true to form way possible. Like, the rite that they read from is the actual Catholic rite of exorcism. But, they didn’t do it correctly, because there never should have been only two other people in there with…

The demon. Oh, yeah. Well, I don’t know this from my Catholic school. We never talked about exorcism in Catholic school I hope not. I’m taking I’m taking the word of internet sleuths Apparently there should have always been at least and maybe exorcist believer got this more, right? There should have been at least four other people in the room.

There should have been the two priests There should have been a medical doctor Who would be there to monitor her medical health and to administer sedatives as necessary. And a member of the possessed’s family of the same gender. To help restrain. 

Todd: Well, it kind of makes logical sense. It does. Like, why did they shut her 

Craig: out?

Well, maybe she If I were her, I couldn’t do it. She sees the worst of it anyway. But, I don’t know if I could do that. I mean, to see By the end, Regan, her body is ravaged. It’s just It’s 

Todd: horrible. Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I could be outside of the room, honestly. Like, I would, no matter what, I mean, as disturbing as it is, I would want to be in there with those guys, seeing what’s going on.

I guess. I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened and I wasn’t there to witness it or be able to potentially intervene. Yeah, that’s a good point. It was hard enough for me to sit out in the hallway while my wife was giving birth. I did not expect to be put in that position and, uh, and I didn’t like it one bit, so.

Craig: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Going back to Regan, I really think that part of the reason that it works so well is that Linda Blair is just so good in the role. Oh yeah. Whoever was speaking on the documentary, I don’t remember if it was Friedkin, I think they said they looked at hundreds if not thousands.

And, uh, Linda Blair’s agency that represented her didn’t even put her up for it, but, uh, her mother, uh, knew, took her there, and, um, she got, she had to read, and she said they took her away from her mother and put her in a room and handed her a script and told her to read, and she said it was the most vulgar, filthy, cringey.

Language she had ever heard in her entire life. She was like 15. She said she walked out of the audition thinking, What am I going to tell my mother? I can’t tell her what they made me say in there. But, uh, but they loved her and they did a screen test with her and Ellen Burstyn and… They cast her, and she’s great.

She’s a beautiful young girl, uh, and just so fresh faced and young, looks younger than she is, especially in the face, and just has the most radiant smile. She just has a glow about her. And then beyond that, she can act. Yeah. I mean, some of the stuff that they ask her to do is crazy, and acting under makeup like that is not easy.

It’s, in fact, really challenging. She has some subtlety of movement in her facial expression that is absolutely haunting and terrifying. She’s great. She’s absolutely 

Todd: great. Before and after the exorcism, honestly, I thought that the acting with her mother just seemed very off the cuff and very genuine. Oh yeah!

Almost as though it were improvised, you know? There’s that 

Craig: scene, like you said, before she’s possessed or is showing any… Signs of it. Chris is putting her to bed and they’re talking about, you know, what should we do for your birthday? And it’s, you know, they are nose to nose. They’re speaking in very, very quiet, almost whisper tones, and it’s just so intimate and so believable.

I 100% believe them as mother and daughter and, and the love and and comfort between them is just. Completely genuine. It’s fantastic. I 

Todd: believed it. I do think that a modern audience might look at that and say, it was a little too sweet. Yeah. , you know, it, it, it was very cloying and sweet between the two of them.

Almost like the, you know, they’re really, really pumping it up so that, you know, the, the possession is, is so much worse by contrast. That’s, 

Craig: I think that’s fair. I don’t think that it’s. We have sweet moments 

Todd: with 

Craig: each other. Yeah, my sister has kids that age and they still snuggle and, you know, I, I, I think in real life that happens.

You know, we don’t do it in public, it’s considered, you know, for the kid, it’s, you know, it’s embarrassing for the kid, like they’re too big for that. But in intimate moments at home, I think that those, I know, I have friends my age who have, Teenage sons, 15, 16, 17 year old sons and their sons still want to snuggle with their moms on the couch.

Like, I know that this is a real thing. Yeah. So anyway, I get it and I, I don’t disagree with you. I think some people might think it’s a, a step too far. Um, but I didn’t and, and I think Ellen Burstyn is, everybody’s great in it. I mean, I could go on and on. Ellen Burstyn said in one of the interviews, she said, I knew we were trying to make a good movie and I knew we were trying to make a scary movie, but I don’t think any of us knew how good.

it would be. Um, I, I thi of one of those lightening where everything, the dir like there was a lot of s With this kind of material. Right. I’m still Shocked that any studio would put this out because they wouldn’t today. No, no way. Maybe A24, 

Todd: maybe. Well, it’s also shocking that this got an R rating and that is another reason I think a lot of people could I’m sure Robert Roger Ebert had some something to say about this, about how could the same studio that rejected XYZ have put an R rating on The Exorcist at that time.

It seems like it was almost an inside job, where the president of the MPAA kind of saw it and more or less assured Warner Brothers that they would make sure that it got an R instead of an X, which was the only other. Option at the time and would have obviously killed the movie’s chances with the public.

It probably 

Craig: deserved an x Like to call this movie vulgar and blasphemous I think is fair. I don’t think that it disrespects religion. In fact, I think it champions 

Todd: religion. Although, this was the same, I mean, this era, this is Watergate, it’s happening right now, it’s 1973, Deep Throat was out around this time, actually a pretty exciting time for American cinema, but also just a flashpoint for culture as far as, like, there were Vietnam War protests going on, the president’s under investigation, and these movies are coming out like people are, Are just questioning everything, everything feels extreme and uh, and cinema was really starting to reflect that and get extremely experimental.

Um, and what mainstream audiences were getting exposed to at this time and going out and seeing in droves and talking about incessantly is pretty shocking even to hear now. You know, down the street, grandmothers and people going to see Deep Throat and chatting about it, you know, lining up around the block to see that.

This movie, people were supposedly fainting in the theaters and throwing up and running out, and it was just all over the news. I mean, what a time period. Yeah. Some of that lightning in a bottle, I think, came from this moment when it was released. And then, like you said earlier, like, the things that this girl has to do, and you know, we can’t watch a movie without…

Also sort of thinking about the actors and, and sometimes being a little worried for them, you know, in the background when it comes to kids anyway, right? This girl’s, you know, masturbating with a crucifix and saying all these horrible things. And actually, even in retrospect, listening to all the interviews with the people and reading stuff, I am not entirely clear on how all that went down and who did what, because there’s a lot of contradictory information from the mouths of the people involved.

Craig: Right. There was, uh, another woman, there were some things that they felt like they couldn’t have a young girl do, and so they hired a young woman who was approximately the same stature as Linda Blair. Her name was Eileen Dietz. Under the makeup, you can barely tell that it’s a different person. In fact, had I not known, I don’t think that I would have questioned it.

But you’re right, there is some kind of contradictory things, because some things that I read said that she did the masturbation scene. But, in that new footage, uh, thing that I just watched, there’s footage of Linda Blair doing that scene. 

Todd: Yes, and Linda Blair herself says she did it. 

Craig: Right, she says that she, uh, she didn’t know what masturbation was.

That wasn’t something that she had come to understand as a young person yet. Um, and the way I, the footage of her doing it, it really just looks like she’s stabbing down. I would guess that maybe that’s the direction she got just stabbed the cross. Down as far as you can 

Todd: yeah Well, she she said in the interview that she had a box between her legs with a sponge in it That was filled with the red, you know blood or whatever stabbed it into it So she says she did it but then they said that they had this deets duke 

Craig: gal do it.

Maybe she did the lines Because the lines are pretty vulgar. And, and Linda Blair was a Christian, and still is, I assume. Um, but she said that her, and I have no, I don’t have any idea what denomination of Christianity she is, but she said that in her religious faith, there just was no talk of the devil. So, the devil wasn’t something she was scared of.

It was a, a character, like, Frankenstein. Um, nothing to really be frightened of. She wasn’t troubled. Emotionally or psychologically in the making of this movie at all. Again, I don’t know. I don’t know what Eileen Dietz did. She, uh, you know, is featured in the interviews and the documentaries and stuff, and she talks about it, and she claims that she did some of the parts that they felt were inappropriate for Linda Blair to do.

Um, but what parts those are exactly remains… The footage of Reagan in that scene that I saw, the newly uncovered footage, she was in a very different makeup look. So, I think that, um, they probably shot it with different looks, too. Ah. I don’t know. 

Todd: It’s possible. Uh, I don’t know. It’s, it’s so contradictory and I think more than anything it just reflects that they were nervous about how the public was going to take it too because Linda Blair straight from her mouth says, I didn’t know what masturbation was at this time, yada, yada, yada.

However, Friedkin tells a story that gets pushed around a lot. Said that when he interviewed her, she, he asked her, you know, Do you know these things? And do you know what the Exorcist is about? And she told him she’d read the book. Oh, 

Craig: I didn’t read 

Todd: that. Yeah, apparently he says she told him she read the book.

Well, how could she read the book and not know that? And then… He says that he asked her what she meant, and she, he says that she says to him, This girl was possessed by the devil and did a whole bunch of bad things, like pushing a man out of her bedroom window, hitting her mother across the face, and she masturbates with a crucifix.

And then Freed can ask her, Do you know what masturbation is? And then she says, It’s like jerking off, isn’t it? And then giggles a little bit. And then he says, Have you ever done that? And she goes, Sure, haven’t you? So like, I mean, that’s a cute little story to tell. But it could also be a cute little story he made up, you know, to like, get people off his back.

It’s a little too perfect. 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, there was so much controversy after because she faced so much, she, the actress, Linda Blair, faced so much scrutiny afterwards because people believed that she had been really spiritually or psychologically traumatized by this and she was asked about it incessantly and in the most pleasant way would say no.

So I’m perfectly fine. It’s just a movie. I was, I was acting. But not only did they think that she was nuts, but they also thought that because she had participated in it, she was evil. And the studio had to hire bodyguards for it. And in one of the documentaries I watched, the documentarian asked, did they have to hire bodyguards for you?

And she said, I don’t talk about that. I won’t talk about that. Next question. Wow. So I have no idea what kind of Okay. violence or threats that she may have experienced, and for how long? That’s nuts. 

Todd: Oh, crazy people can come out of the woodwork, man. Something like this. And yeah, she 

Craig: wasn’t psychologically harmed, but both she and Ellen Burstyn were seriously, physically harmed, and sustained injuries that they have had to deal with for the rest of their lives.

Hmm. Linda Blair said in one of the documentaries, she said, let me get this, let me put this out there first and foremost. Uh, Billy Friedkin is a genius. He is an absolute genius. Um, she said, but sometimes, when you’re working with a genius, Things can get crazy. The most, for her, the effects in this, of course, are all practical.

There were three different beds built to perform different functions as far as levitation and shaking and all that stuff. All of, uh, the stuff like the levitation, Um, her insane body movement, her impossible, physically impossible body movement, her spider walk, all of that was done with mechanics and, and wires.

But anyway, there was one scene in particular where Regan basically is just bending at the waist, flopping up and down on the bed. And… It looks amazing, because it’s so fast, it’s, it’s impossible, it’s humanly impossible, no person could do that. But the way that it worked was she was built, she was strapped into a contraption, that she said was a mold of her back, a hard metal mold of her back, that she was then strapped into and it laced up on the sides.

And when they were filming the scene, the lacing came loose, so she wasn’t secured, she wasn’t, You know, tight against that brace and so what it kept doing every time it would go up and down It was smacking her on the back repeatedly over and over again this hard metal plate. Well her lines were Stop it.

Stop it. It hurts. Please it hurts So as she was literally screaming in pain and begging for them to turn it off They thought that she was just acting And at one point she said, she said, I think I said, no, really, it hurts, but. She said somebody thought they heard her say Billy, the name of the director, so they stopped it, and you can see the footage.

I mean, she just is sobbing, and clearly in excruciating pain, and that’s the footage they used. Ugh, it’s wild. And she’s, she cracked her spine. They didn’t even take her to the doctor. 

Todd: Yeah. And there’s a scene where Ellen Burson’s characters thrown against the, uh, window by the force of the kind of poltergeist type forces in there.

So they actually interviewed the guy who did these effects and, uh, he was the one who, you know, was basically yanking that cord back. To pull her and after the first take the guy said look it was a it was a perfectly great shot He thought it was fine Well, william freekin said no I want to do it again Allen burst and said I really don’t want to do this again.

It really hurt. I could really injure myself 

Craig: She specifically said he’s pulling 

Todd: too hard. Yep And so, after some argument, Billy just kind of looks at her and goes, Okay, well, you know, keep it softer, do it softer next time. And then she said, as he walked away, she could see that they exchanged a glance.

Like William Friedkin was telling the stunt guy, Just go ahead and, just go ahead and pull it. Hard, really hard this time. Harder. And he did it. He says he did it. He admitted it. He says it on camera. And of course he pulled her back. And according to him in the interview, he’s like, and then, you know, of course she was in pain.

But then she went to her chiropractor and got checked out and everything was, uh, he said everything was fine. But no. Ha ha ha ha. She, didn’t she fracture her tailbone or something? 

Craig: Something. I mean, I think it caused her chronic pain for the rest of her life. Were she and Friedkin dating? I never heard anything about that.

There were a couple of things that she said in the, in some of the interviews that made it sound like they were, but I don’t know. But they, you know, more than one of the actors said that he was just kind of… Crazy, and he would do things that we would probably consider completely unethical today. 

Todd: He would shoot guns off 

Craig: near them.

Right, to elicit responses out of them. The guy that played Father Charis said he shot a shotgun off within inches of my head. Which is just… 

Todd: Bad like you don’t do that. You can kill someone’s hearing like right. I just it just blows me away and Max von Sydow I’ll mentioned it to about how he would shoot these guns off to try to get startled reactions for him And he kind of rolled his eyes.

He said look I’m an actor. I don’t need this just Don’t. Right, but he was 

Craig: also so diplomatic about things. Like he said, do I think that William Friedkin, uh, is a brilliant filmmaker? I do. I was entirely unfamiliar with his methods. Like, like, he’s a lunatic. Um, but he makes a good movie. At the 

Todd: end of the day, it doesn’t seem like anybody hates William Friedkin for anything that he subjected him to.

But they’re all, they are all saying, look, he did subject him to some stuff. And maybe not all of it was necessary. 

Craig: Right. Certainly questionable. But I think they’re all proud of the final product. So, you know, what are you gonna do? Trash talk your own movie? 

Todd: I mean, you get it with a lot of directors, right?

Stanley Kubrick is probably the biggest example. James Cameron. You know, these guys, uh, people love to work with them, they fight to work with these guys even, even though they know, you know, that they’re, might, they might end up crying half the time, you know, because of so called abuse. Ha ha ha ha, you know.

Craig: Right. Yeah, and then, you know, other, suppose, this is one of those films that they say, you know, is cursed or whatever, it’s, it’s the first episode of Cursed Films on, Shudder, which I had seen before, but I re watched for this, and in re watching it, really, there’s not, they don’t divulge, it’s only, it’s less than 30 minutes, and they really don’t go very deep into it, and in fact, they spend a good portion of the time talking about modern day exorcists, which made me very uncomfortable, because it seemed like charlatans who were taking advantage of people, uh, I didn’t care for that.

So, supposedly it’s cursed. Now, Ellen Burstyn said in the interview that up to nine people in some way connected to the film died, um, either during shooting or immediately thereafter. Now, some of those connections were really tenuous, like 

Todd: Yeah, somebody’s uncle, you know somebody’s 

Craig: father. Right, right.

Exactly, like, uh, Linda Blair’s grandfather died. Von Cito’s, uh, brother died on the first day of shooting. Uh, the special effects guy who cooled the room for them died. Um, she said there was like a cameraman or an assistant whose wife was pregnant and the baby died. And, and she listed off a bunch of others too.

I was really, I thought it was very insightful when Vansito said, you know, if it had happened on a two week shoot, sure. That would be, you know, some pretty amazing coincidence. He said, but when you’re shooting like a six month, nine month shoot, things are going to happen. And he said, it makes for good publicity, but.

Things are going to happen over a six to nine month 

Todd: period. Even Peter Blatty, William Peter Blatty at one point kind of said look, I, I, I think that, um, the studio and in particular Friedkin were really sort of playing that up early on, this idea that the set might be cursed. He made a few offhand comments that maybe some people picked up on and then they all sort of decided to roll with.

Just to, you know, increase publicity around the movie. Linda 

Craig: Blair said that much, that much later, years and years later, she became more friendly with somebody who had worked PR on the film and that PR person had told them that they really intentionally, uh, played up the hype. Uh, for PR, and that it totally, 100 percent worked.

It worked, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was brilliant advertising, you know, saying people were fainting, and you know, they had kind of a viral, uh, ad campaign. The first trailer they released had to be pulled because, um, it had the potential to cause epileptic seizures, and the trailer is, uh… You know, it seems kind of quaint by today’s standards, but I can totally see how at the time it would have been very compelling and and scary.

Oh, I I would have been first in line, I’m sure. Mm 

Todd: hmm. It’s like a Blair Witch project type sort of thing. I, I, I, you know what? There’s something that completely bypassed me. The first time I saw this, at least it was not in my memory. That for me, was one of the most horrifying scenes in the movie, and it shocked me was the angiography scene.

Oh, 

Craig: that whole sequence. I meant to say something about that before. Was it new?

tests are horrifying. And I think that that is intentional. It does so much to make you sympathetic towards Reagan because the things that she has to go through early on, even before she’s, you know, fully, possessed, are just an absolute nightmare for anybody, but especially a child. And she looks genuinely terrified and uncomfortable.

Ah, it’s awful. And especially that scene, which I know is a special effect. Then it’s, oh god. Oh, 

Todd: yo, I mean, and, gosh, you know what, I was having flashbacks to, um, when my son, I was on a trip, uh, I was in Hong Kong, and, uh, we were at the airport, and he slipped on a thing and fell and hit his head on a table.

He was not very old, he was like, uh, two, maybe two and a half, not even two and a half. He slept and he hit his head on the table, and it being Asian, being Hong Kong, like, people make this big deal out of it. Plus, like, I don’t think the airline wants to, you know, be sued or anything like that. And so, we ended up taking this big diversion where we had to go to this hospital, and the doctor insisted on x raying his head.

You know, I said, okay, Kenji, you know, we’re gonna put your head down here into this thing and it was just this sort of foam Thing that was big enough to put his head in because you know when you get an x ray Even though it’s only a couple seconds like you’re not supposed to move Right and they brought this thing down within inches of his face and he’s in this thing And he’s looking terrified, and I said, Don’t worry, it’s, it’s just gonna be real fast, it’s gonna be real quick, they’re just taking a picture of your, of your, of your inside.

And, he was very nervous about it, they finished it, and then the doctor’s like, Okay, turn him to the side. Cause they wanted the side one! And I’m like, Oh shit, I gotta go through this again! And it was even worse, cause then his head, his And it just, it’s scary, you know? A hospital can be a scary place, no matter how you’re being reassured.

And especially at this time, these machines, oh my god, they’re loud? 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, MRI machines are still loud. They still make that loud banging noise. I don’t know why they can’t get that figured out. Right? But it was, it was even worse. I mean, 

Todd: gosh. Oh, and you know what? It’s horrible. The sound design, by the way, since we’re talking about it, is brilliant in this movie.

I think that they got an Academy Award for it and deserved it because, especially that opening sequence in Iraq, the way that the sounds blend together and just kind of come together in this cacophony of… It’s almost like a score without music. It’s… 

Craig: And it was like hamster wheels and bees in jars. They were just recording all of these strange sounds and then manipulating them and laying them over one another to just make this really, uh, unsettling background.

And then Friedkin himself went in and just recorded a bunch of, like, moans, like, wahhh. Yeah, so much. And then they manipulated all that and laid it over different parts. Brilliant. And painstaking pain, painstaking, it shows the voice. Reagan’s voice. They spent like 150, they recorded all of, she recorded the lines and they spent like 150 hours manipulating her voice.

And Friedkin was like, don’t like it. And so they had to start all over again. And they got, uh, Mercedes McCambridge, this actress, um, to do it. And she seemed like a nut. Yeah, she was a it’s not hard to imagine the rage and then she would just come out with these crazy line reads Um, this is in the interview that i’m talking about and she says that she ate raw eggs and smoked and drank A lot to record and they put her in restraints To record the lines, so that she would feel like she would act it, too, the same way that Linda Blair would, would, even though she never met Linda Blair.

And Friedkin himself said that he was stunned what this woman allowed them to put her through. And coming from him, I can’t even imagine. But yeah, all those medical tests were an absolute nightmare, and that one where they… Put, like, a catheter in her neck. I have never seen that done. Apparently, it’s a real procedure where they’re going into an artery and they’re injecting some sort of dye so that they can…

Yeah. see it on the MRI or the brain scan, or whatever, because they think she has a lesion. The blood is just squirting out of it and… So gross, and… And that was a real medical professional. Friedkin wanted actual professionals where he could get them. So a lot of these medical prof Most of these medical professionals were not actors.

Uh, at least two or three of the people playing priests in the film are priests. Are priests! 

Todd: I was surprised! 

Craig: That surprises me too! I’m surprised that the church sanctioned that. But they’re still priests now, so apparently the church was okay with it. 

Todd: They are. You know, God, this, like I said, this episode could go on for two hours because there’s so much interesting stuff to unpack here, but the guy who played Father Dyer…

Who ended up having a bigger role in the extended cut than he had in the original. Boy, I would really love to talk about him, but we might not have time. 

Craig: Well, I was just gonna say, in that scene where she’s getting that, where they’re doing all those tests, there’s one technician who pulls her down onto the table and he says like, I’m gonna pull you down now a little bit, honey, or something like that.

He’s only got one line, good looking guy. He would go on to murder… a reporter and get caught for it. That’s another one of the cursed connections that there’s an actual murderer in this movie. And there is, he went on like a drug and alcohol and sex fueled bender with a reporter for some magazine in New York city, I think.

And, uh, he ended up killing the guy. Then he made an anonymous phone call to somebody. And in the phone call, he said something about if anybody, if he got caught, he’d never be able to practice again. And that basically led them to him, and he eventually confessed. So, that’s crazy. 

Todd: Was there anything about Dyer in that Cursed Films thing?

I don’t think so. He, well, I mean it’s not, I don’t know. You know, like I said, like, okay, you’re involved in the movie, and then something happens to you decades later, and now the film’s cursed, like, it’s kind of, it’s kind of silly. But, I mean, interesting bit of trivia. That guy… Uh, was, uh, a priest and then he taught at, um, a couple universities, uh, there and he had some bit of notoriety from his role in the film, even though he was not an actor.

He’s another guy that Freed can really put the paces through. I think at the end when he comes up to Father Karras and gives him his last rites, basically his last confession while he’s laying in the pavement bleeding to death. Um, he, Friedkin wasn’t getting the reactions out, the, the authenticity that he thought he should get out of this guy.

And so he says, do you trust me? And he’s like, yeah, and he just slaps him in the face a couple times. Oh yeah. And then he said, you see me shaking in that scene, and it is because I am, I’m genuinely shaken up. But um, He, uh, at night, uh, God, uh, I think it was 2019 or so, was accused of molesting some kids back in the mid 80s while he was teaching at some place.

And I don’t think that, um, Much came of that because he died, uh, what, last year? Last year or the year before? He was either 2020 or 2021, um, before, before all that could come to trial. So, uh, he was, uh, fired from the university that he worked, and a building that had his name on it was, uh, renamed. Oh, darn.

And some stuff kind of 

Craig: fell out from that, too. I would think that that would suggest that there was… 

Todd: Must have been. 

Craig: Some strong evidence. There must have been. Right, right. Which, that’s, that’s terrible. It’s horrible, it’s 

Todd: sad. Uh. 

Craig: It’s one of the reasons that I’m very ambivalent about organized religion.

The Catholic Church does not have a good history. No, they don’t. Especially in that regard. I did want to say, though, that scene was particularly moving to me this time because this is something that I should have known. Obviously, we’re not going to talk about the plot. The episode’s almost over. We assume you’ve seen this movie.

If you haven’t, go out and see it. See it immediately, but one of the parts of the plot that I really hadn’t considered before it ends very abruptly with, uh, father Marin dying off screen. Now, presumably the demon did something that caused him to have a heart attack, but he was very frail. Anyway. Yeah.

That point 

Todd: is, is made, yeah. 

Craig: I find that scene very haunting when Karras First of all, why were either of them in there alone? That never should have happened. Oh, right. And, but Karras comes in and finds him dead and, and Regan is kind of curled up s in a sitting position, but just, uh, kind of curled up and giggling, and, God, I know I’ve seen this a million times, but it’s so jarring to see Father Karras attack her and pick her up, get her down on the floor, and beat her!

Brutally. And say, take me, come into me when that is not something that has ever been addressed before as even a possibility. And then the demon immediately does, which makes me question, was that his end game all along because it seemed, because father Karis was fragile even before. He was called upon. Oh yeah.

He was clearly already connected in some way. He was having visions. Maybe, uh, that was the demon’s goal all along, and maybe he won. But, the demon jumps into him, but he has enough resistance that he’s able to throw himself out the stairs, and he falls down to the bottom of the stairs. And fa A crowd gathers.

I just remembered him being dead. But a crowd gathers, and Father Dyer asks, Do you want to make a confession? And he moves his hand, which Father Dyer takes as a yes, which they have. The right to do, just FYI, priests can make that determination on their own. He says, are you sorry for all your sins? And he moves his hands again.

That hadn’t really occurred to me, but that’s a really important plot point that I don’t think that Catholics would maybe, or non Catholics would maybe understand. In that moment, Father Dyer has absolved Father Karras of all of his sins. So, he will go to heaven. Like, if, if Catholic belief is correct, a priest has the power to absolve you of all of your sins.

Anytime. That’s kind of a loophole of Catholicism, like we’re made to feel really guilty about our sins, but really all you have to do is a confession and you’re forgiven. If you’re truly sorry, that’s the caveat. You have to really truly be sorry. Um, but he gives him his last rites, and in giving him his last rites, he ensures his entry into heaven.

And that’s something that I had never considered before, and it’s kind of a big deal. Ha ha ha 

Todd: ha! Something that I had never noticed before either in this movie, that I wonder if… I didn’t find a lot of discussion about it online. I found some Reddit threads where some people brought it up. It was, it was obvious to me, or at least it seemed to be the strong implication that Father Dyer is gay.

Because… He, of his piano playing, uh, he talks about how he wants He’s big into show tunes, yeah. And there’s another comment or two that he makes at some point. And I did kind of wonder, he visits Father Dyer, he seems to be the most concerned about Father Dyer. He visits him in his, um, dorm room at the, at the university and, uh, puts him to bed.

Yeah, that 

Craig: scene kind of gave me a little bit of pause. There was quite a bit of touching going on in that scene. Mm 

Todd: hmm. So those two scenes, and then at the end, he’s the guy who’s just, he seems the most shaken up by what’s going on, and when he’s, and Father Dyer, Father Karras is clearly troubled by, definitely by his mother, you know, that’s a whole thing we don’t, we can’t really talk about right now, but like, there’s definitely the guilt around his mother, and that seems to be all the movie is overtly telling us.

I did wonder if there’s a subtext, I don’t know, you read the book, I don’t know if there is or not. I don’t think so. But if there was. A little bit of Catholic guilt over homosexuality 

Craig: for him? I feel like that would be something that I would remember and I don’t but I could be wrong It is I’ve read the book once.

In fact, I listened to it while I was working out So I don’t I I can’t say with any certainty. I don’t remember it We barely talked about Father Karas at all, which is too bad. What what’s his name? 

Todd: Damien Oh, 

Craig: the actor’s name. Jason, uh, Jason Miller. Jason Miller, and, and Friedkin had seen him on Broadway, like, uh, the studio wanted Jack Nicholson, or Paul Newman, and I think at one point they were really pushing for Marlon Brando, which would have been terrible.

And Friedkin said absolutely no to, uh, Marlon Brando. First of all, Marlon Brando was already kind of losing it at this point. Secondly, Friedkin was completely 100 percent right in saying, if we cast Brando, it will just be a Brando piece. Like, it won’t be its own movie, it’ll be a Brando movie, and he’s totally right.

But, but, uh, Jason Miller puts in an excellent performance, and it was nice to see him in the interviews, because we know… That when they made Exorcist 3, they wanted him to reprise his role, which he ultimately did, but he had to split it with Blad Brad Dourif, because he was in such bad shape from his alcoholism.

Like, he couldn’t, he couldn’t remember lines and, 

Todd: and stuff like that. Mm, yeah, they did some creative things to kind of, like, get around that. That was, uh… Something we talked about that in our Exorcist 3 episode, didn’t we? Yeah, which 

Craig: is a good episode and people should listen to it and people should watch that movie.

You can skip Exorcist 2. I don’t hate it. I don’t think that it’s terrible. Most everybody does, but it’s, it’s a very different kind of movie and Exorcist 3 really is the sequel that, I think, Exorcist 3 is based on the novel. That Blatty wrote as a sequel to The Exorcist. So this, it really is kind of the real sequel.

Um, and it’s quite good. It is. I don’t remember, like, I’ve seen them all. I’ve seen the ones that they did in the 2000s. The one where they filmed one movie and then they didn’t like it. So they filmed it again with some of the same cast but a different script. And then they released that movie and it bombed.

So then they filmed the, then they released the first one. And it got better critical reception, but it bombed too. I don’t really remember much about either of those. The original, and this is often the case, not always, but often the case in these kind of franchises, the original stands shoulders. And, and heads above all of the things that follow, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not stuff to be enjoyed in the later ones, too.

You know, this 

Todd: is what’s unique about this movie, and I think that when people nowadays hear, this is one of the scariest movies ever made, they’re expecting some, like, Evil Dead type movie. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is not that kind of a horror movie. No. This is a very well made film that’s very interested in providing characters with deep emotions and deep motivations.

Most of the movie is about how all of the people intersecting with Regan and coming together and trying to figure out what’s wrong with her. They’ve all got their own little skeletons. You know, they’ve all got their own traumas that this demon is. picking at, whether it’s directly or just sort of indirectly through the situation that the demon has created.

It’s well made. It is just gorgeously photographed. 

Craig: Yeah. You can, we can’t say enough how well made it is. Now, of course, what we watched has been digitally restored for 4k. So, so it owes something to that, but the cinematography holds up. It looks like it could have been made. Yes. And it’s beautiful, like, the, the, the backdrop of Georgetown in the autumn is absolutely stunning.

The lighting is amazing and he made a concentrated effort to have a balance of incredibly bright Daytime scenes, especially the ones in the beginning in Iraq, um, and then cold, dark scenes, like the interior of Reagan’s room, and he really wanted to balance that because he wanted to present a balance of light and dark and good and evil, but It was also important to him that in the end, good triumphs.

Yeah. And the Catholic Church is really painted in a really good light in this movie. 

Todd: All of the priests who were involved in all their interviews had, you know, they were very defensive of the movie, and it doesn’t even sound like the church even at the time raised too many complaints about it either.

Except for Billy Graham. Yeah, well, Billy Graham’s not Catholic. That’s true, that’s true. You know, so there are just a couple things. Since we did the extended cut, I want to talk about just a couple things specific to the extended cut. Number one, like you said, sometimes I think the clarity of the image, which is in its ideal form, hurts a little bit.

With, like, the makeup. Ha ha ha ha. I felt like the, it, that was helped a little bit by the grainier footage that was a little darker that I was, I’m used to seeing. The makeup when you got close up on Regan, and especially Max von Sydow’s, like, old age makeup. There were moments when I was like, oh, that looks, looks fake.

You know? It looks like 

Craig: makeup. The old age makeup I’ll give you, but uh, the Linda Blair makeup I thought looked fantastic. Didn’t bother me that it was cleaned up at all. Most of the time 

Todd: it did, sometimes I, it bothered me, it looked a little cheesy. Um, the second thing is uh, I’m so glad that they cut the spider walk out originally.

I, it’s too much. And it’s too early, I think, personally. Yeah. Uh, I think 

Craig: that was a wise choice. I agree. Yeah, and, and how, how do things go back to even any semblance of normalcy after that? No. Which they do for a little while. You can’t 

Todd: get that, I mean, Duh Movie gets very supernatural, but that’s like, over the top, crazy town.

I like this 

Craig: cut because I like seeing that scene. Oh yeah. But in terms of, in terms of, um, pacing, it really doesn’t work. It would, it probably, it probably was the right choice. 

Todd: And the other thing, you know, you can say is that the head twisting, the head twisting always kind of like bother me because that’s that one thing that like, Oh, come on, like that, that physically can’t happen.

But free can makes a comment or bloody makes a comment. One of the things about how they cut away and then cut back. He intentionally cut to father Karis after that happened and then cut back. And there’s The impression that it could have been a hallucination. I didn’t pick that up in the watching of it, but looking back on it, I think that’s a defense.

I 

Craig: suppose. Yeah, I guess. It wasn’t meant to be a 360 spin. It was supposed to just turn 180 and then turn back. But they had the capability of doing it 360, so Friedkin said, Let’s do it. Let’s shoot one. Yeah, let’s 

Todd: shoot one. Even 180 is impossible, but yeah, you’re right. 

Craig: Right, and that’s what they went with.

Todd: Uh, and then the third thing, I want to talk about the ending, right? The extended ending. Because, uh, part of what just kind of, like, fried me about the original movie was, it is a very sudden ending. Like, the exorcism event suddenly, it’s this sudden tragic death of Father Karras, who kind of sacrifices himself, um, and is dead, and it…

It’s like, wow, it feels very bleak. You do see, I think, them pack in their car and leave, and that’s kind of about it, I think, is what the original ending was, right? I think you’re right, yeah. This one, uh, I was surprised to see how long it went on for almost another, like, eight minutes, probably, of that guy, that detective who pops in and out.

Kinderman. Kinderman has a, has an interesting conversation with Karras, when he’s more or less probing and almost accusing Karras of, either hiding some knowledge about whether there might be some priest at the university who was involved in killing the The filmmaker or whatever or maybe he himself, you know, uh is hiding something Maybe he had some involvement and he says something to him about Hey Do 

Craig: you like movies very much?

Well, I get passes to the best shows in japan Mrs. K though, you know, she gets tired, you know never likes to go It’s too bad, yeah, I hate to go alone. Yeah, I love

Todd: And you get the impression like he never really was going to go with them anyway, no matter what was playing, but 

Craig: he’s just, no, it was a fake movie, like, like not a fake movie, but he said the title of a movie, but then he. said that the stars were two people who were absolutely not the stars of that movie.

Yeah, 

Todd: but I don’t know if that was, was that a conceit just for the film or was that was the character himself? 

Craig: I think that, I think that it was, he wasn’t really interested in taking him to the movies. Sure. He just wanted to get more time with him. So I think that he was just using that as a ruse and I think that he knew the, the priest knew that and so he was just.

So 

Todd: yeah, me too. I, I, that’s, that’s how I felt. Um, then it comes up again at the end in this extended cut where Father Dyer is at the house after everybody drives away. He said goodbye to them. He walks over to the stairs. He looks down them, decides he’s not going to go down those stairs and then, uh, turns back and meets up with, uh, the inspector again, who’s there and they have some words.

It’s like, are you okay? Yeah. Are you okay? Yeah. Uh, Well, life goes on, right? Yadda, yadda, yadda. And the inspector starts to walk away, but then he does exactly the same thing. He turns around and offers this guy a ticket to the movie. And this guy says, Oh, sorry, I’ve already seen it. And then he says, Well, what are you doing for lunch?

Have you had lunch yet? And, uh, he’s like, No. And he puts his arm around him and they kind of walk off down the street. There 

Craig: was even more dialogue, um, as they walked away. There was one more shot where it was supposed to pull back. And, and show them walking away from, like, high up and, and behind them. And, uh, Kinderman was gonna say to Dyer, Kid, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Oh, God. And then they just walked off. And the only reason that they didn’t put that back in for this cut is because they couldn’t find the audio. They had the video, but they couldn’t find the audio. Oh, wow. So they didn’t put it back in. What do you make of that? I don’t know. Well, I know what the, I know what Friedkin said about it, um, he said that he wanted to put that stuff back in because he wanted to show that, yes, this horrible thing had happened, but now life goes on.

Actually, that 

Todd: was Blatty, I think, who was pushing Friedkin to put it back in for that reason and Friedkin resisted, but ultimately, yeah, 

Craig: I think you’re right. You know, I, I think he said something like, you know, all is well, God is in his holy temple, life goes on. And, and I think, you know, good and evil.

will always exist, but in this movie, at least seemingly good triumphs over evil. And now people pick up the pieces and move on. And that’s what Chris and Reagan are doing. And that’s what Kinderman and Dyer are doing. I maybe Kinderman just wants to continue to have an in with the church. I don’t know. I think I prefer the original ending just because.

This one just doesn’t do much for me like when I read the intention, okay, that makes sense I think that I could get that enough from Chris and Reagan packing up having a nice goodbye with Father Dyer and that’s The end, you know, like it’s over. We’re moving on. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need the extra stuff But it didn’t bother me either.

It’s fine. The new 

Todd: ending confused me. I was even reading homosexual overtones into it undertones into it Yeah, I know because I’ve been primed earlier. I was like what’s going on with father Dyer now Why are we concentrating on him so much and then this guy wants to be chummy chummy with them and he also wanted to be Chummy chummy with father Maris and I thought maybe I misinterpreted that earlier I don’t know what subtext I’m missing.

It’s just like, you know, you don’t put a scene like that in there without, like, a very strong reason. And although the reason makes sense… Oh, I just want to show a happy ending. Like, it could have been a lot shorter and more economical, you 

Craig: know? Yeah, well, and that’s probably why they initially did it that way, and the theatrical cut was really successful, which is probably the only reason that we eventually got a director’s cut.

It’s, people… Like myself are big fans of this movie and there is stuff available that they could share with us. And, oh yeah, I’m glad they did that. It’s, it’s one of those things, like if you prefer the theatrical cut of the movie, that’s good. Watch it. I, that’s, that’s great. I’m, if that’s, if that’s your favorite version, that’s the one you should watch.

I like having access to this one. Cause I like seeing the different stuff I like in the original theatrical cut. I think he cut out a lot, if not all of those like subliminal cuts. Didn’t he? Like the demon faces and stuff, I don’t They were back. Mo Yeah, most of those were not in the theatrical cut, I don’t think.

Just the one. And I like those. 

Todd: I liked them too. I was actually surprised by that. That Now, that doesn’t mean they’re not truly subliminal or else you wouldn’t be able to notice them. No. But there’s that really cool one where she the lights are flickering on and off in the kitchen and suddenly you see You see that face for a split second in the shadow next to her during one of the flickers?

Uh huh. Oh, that was a nice little treat, you know? I 

Craig: thought those were good. I love it. That is, uh, her Eileen Dietz. Eileen Dietz did. That’s her. That’s her face. 

Todd: Ah, that’s cool. Yeah, well, here we finally did The Exorcist and we’ve only scratched the surface like we promised. I know, we didn’t talk 

Craig: about the plot at all.

I apologize if that’s what you’re coming here for, but honestly, I, I, I wouldn’t even want to do that. I wouldn’t want to go through point by point of the plot if you haven’t seen it. You should watch it. Um, it’s a really good movie. I’ve got 

Todd: three pages of notes I’ve barely touched. Yeah, 

Craig: I have a lot of notes.

Oh, I didn’t look at them at all. I only looked at the notes for the, you know, extra stuff out there. And on, on the DVD version of this, there’s even another, uh, retrospective I think that I couldn’t find, um, online. So, if you are a fan, there’s tons and tons of extra stuff. Uh, that you can find. Deleted scenes, retrospectives, interviews, making ofs, uh, all kinds of 

Todd: stuff.

I I’m really curious now, going back and watching this movie again after so long and refreshing yourself with it, does it at all change your feelings or opinions, even in the slightest way, about the the newest one? No, 

Craig: the only thing that I’ll concede to is that I said the exorcism went on for much longer, and it doesn’t.

However… Linda Blair is full out possessed for like the second half of the movie. Yeah. Or most of. The, the priests aren’t there yet, but she’s stabbing herself in her downstairs. Yeah, like 50 minutes in. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: 50 minutes in. Right. And that goes on for a 

Todd: while. It does, although like, there’s very little footage of it.

I mean, most of what happens is not concentrated on her at all. But you’re right. Yeah, 

Craig: that’s the other thing. It is, I mean, I don’t know if young people, sensibilities are just different. I think that they go into, they go into horror movies with certain expectations. Um, and this movie, I was never bored. I was compelled.

throughout. I thought the pacing was excellent, but there are long periods of drama and exposition. 

Todd: Well, that’s the point I was trying to make earlier, is I think that, you know, modern, a modern audience who’s never been exposed to this before, being told this is the scariest movie ever made, having seen the movies that they’ve presumably seen up to this point, which are a lot more intense.

And a lot more in your face, uh, and exploitative. You know, they’re gonna look at this, I think, and perhaps think of it as relatively tame. But this movie 

Craig: crosses lines that contemporary movies do not. Yeah, it does. I think. I agree. I think, I think that some of the stuff in this movie is still legitimately shocking, even to a modern audience.

Once you get to it. I just, I can’t, once you get to it. Yeah. And it is troubling, it is shocking. Um, but I. I think that this movie kind of deserves its place, ranked high in, in the canon of horror films. Oh yeah. It is among the best, if not the best, horror movies in terms of film quality out there. From, from, I want to say an objective perspective, it’s a great movie, that’s not.

Fair. I mean, it’s, it’s my opinion, but in my humble opinion, I think that it is just brilliantly, brilliantly made, excellent direction, excellent cinematography, excellent writing, excellent, excellent acting. I really have very few, if any, criticisms of it at all. I can’t imagine that if you listen to this podcast, you haven’t seen it, but if you haven’t…

See, yeah, it’s it’s great. Well, 

Todd: if you have stuck with us this long as promised We have another special treat for you. As I said earlier on the last episode We have some messages from our listeners from our patron patrons Specifically Craig. Are you ready to hear what longtime listener and patron Gary has sent us?

Yes. All right. Hello, Todd and Craig. Congratulations on your 

Craig: 365th episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. This is longtime listener and patron Gary, excited to talk at you for a little bit. If you don’t count 

Todd: my long winded patron comments, sorry about those. I 

Craig: first found your podcast back in 2019. on Apple Podcasts when I was looking for a horror movie review show about Sleepaway Camp.

The podcasts I was finding, the hosts were using the F bomb every five seconds, and their sentences weren’t making any coherent sense. So I sought out a podcast without the explicit label next to it, and that’s how I found you. I know it’s ironic given the language in Sleepaway Camp, 

Todd: but 

Craig: it is what it is.

My favorite episode of Duke Dies in a Chainsaw is Don’t Look Now. The discussion is really great behind it, but it also turned me on to one of my favorite horror films, uh, now. So I’m eternally grateful for that. 

Todd: My favorite horror film, personally, is 1932’s 

Craig: Freaks, Google 

Todd: Gobble. And I 

Craig: love the horror genre because there’s a certain mystery behind it.

You don’t know what will happen in the end. Who will survive by the end and they don’t have the restrictions that more mainstream movies have and so they can experiment more. So those are things I appreciate about film. Thank you so much, um, for the entertainment you’ve provided over the years. It means a lot to a lot of people.

Again, congrats on your milestone. Gary’s a good guy. 

Todd: He is, isn’t he? Yeah. He talks a lot 

Craig: with us, yeah. He’s a long term, uh, a long time patron, and he, uh, sparks up conversations with us on almost every post, um, that we put on our Patreon page. And, uh, I really appreciate that. I love hearing from people. I love hearing people’s feedback on what we’re doing.

And, um, Gary’s just been very kind and very supportive of us. And so it’s really nice, uh, to put a voice with a name. At least. And uh, Gosh, we have talked about doing freaks on this show. We have. Before. You’ve seen it? We really need to No! 

Todd: Oh god. And I want to. You know, it’s gonna surprise you, actually, I think, of how disturbing it is.

I mean, you know, I mean, for its time especially, but even today, like, It’s a bit, you know, the subject matter is a little, 

Craig: I mean, a lot of the footage was destroyed, right? Like there’s only some footage 

Todd: available, right? Oh, no, the whole movie is, uh, is, is available. Now you can see it. Well, it was pulled from theaters.

Boy, I don’t remember exactly, but it was definitely, it was pulled from theaters early. It didn’t get shown for a very long time. There may be extra footage that, you know, was shot that wasn’t included. You know, we’re never going to see a director’s cut of it or anything like that. But, uh, no, it’s intact.

It’s, it’s a, it’s a powerful movie. I, I totally stand behind that. I can see why it would be a favorite. We could dive into, uh, several of those older horror movies, but, uh, that’s a very notorious one. Yeah, we should check that out. We should. I, you know, I’m really happy to hear that my efforts at bleeping out the F bombs, both in us and in the footage is, uh, is paying off to not put that, uh, explicit label next for a podcast.

I just had a feeling that might help us. 

Craig: Yeah, and, uh, Gary is not the only person to say that. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about that, and I I apologize because in my private life, I just am not concerned about foul language. Obviously, I’m a school teacher. At school, I don’t use that kind of language. I know how to conduct myself in polite company.

All right. But… You and I are just buddies talking about something. This is not polite company. Right. So, thank you for bleeping it out, um, for those who don’t appreciate it. Which I fully, completely understand. It’s just something that… Oh yeah. You know, I was a linguistics major. You know, I understand that there are words that have power, but some of them…

Don’t hold a lot of power for me. And so I use them very casually But thank you for for bleeping them out because I think it’s it’s the right call. You’re 

Todd: you’re judicious I think when you use the f word and I went for that, you know when I use the f word we mean it It’s not Filler talk for us. This 

Craig: is like, yeah, I don’t know.

Sometimes I just get real excited.

Todd: Well, anyway, thank you so much, Gary, for your support of the show, your continued support. It’s lovely speaking with you as it is speaking with all of our patrons and just our listeners who aren’t patrons, whoever you are, wherever you are. We love hearing from you. Please, uh, feel free to send us a message, a voice recording.

We listen to everything we get. That is Speakpipe. com slash Chainsaw Podcast, or you can go to our website, ChainsawHorror. com, and click the link there. There’s also a link on our website to our newsletter, and you know, we’re starting to get responses to our newsletter now. I saw that. Yeah, if you respond to that newsletter, we get it, we read it.

We may not respond to everybody, but we will try to. And so, uh, just Send us your comments there as well. Subscribe to that newsletter. We throw a few bits and bobs in there about horror news. Remind you of the episodes that are coming up, some previous episodes you might’ve missed, and what’s going on in our, in our Patreon community.

Just, just gonna try to keep it fun and light, just a little something extra. And you can find us, as you know, online at our website, chainsaw horror.com, as well as just by searching two guys in a chainsaw podcast and find us anywhere podcasts are. The best thing you can do is leave us a review somewhere and, uh, share this with a friend who you think might enjoy.

What easier way to do that than to, say, forward that newsletter along? So many ways to connect. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We’re taking our 367th episode to celebrate our 366th! Why, you may ask? Because at 366, you now have enough episodes to watch an episode a day for a full year – even on a leap year.

To christen this milestone, we chose this Hulu-exclusive that came out around the pandemic days. It’s a charming little zom-com that isn’t afraid to pop a handful of zombie children in there. Very reminiscent of Cooties, and fun for the whole family, really. More or less. Just don’t confuse it with the Fred Savage / Howie Mandel film of the same name.

Little Monsters (2019)

Episode 367, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we have come to our 367th episode. It is a special day for us. We’ve been talking about this for about a month now, right? Our 365th episode was two weeks ago. You know, I think I had said to you, oh man, we missed doing our Wes Craven special for like the 350th episode.

Like the 350th just blew right by us. We didn’t even notice. Yeah. And you were like, that’s okay. 365 is more important to me. Yeah. 365. 366 if it’s a leap year. It means you can listen to an episode every single day out of the year, even if it’s a leap year. So we thought we would take our 367th episode to do something a little special to us anyway and celebrate that we have come this far and hopefully we’ll have another 366 episodes ahead of us.

But this is the beginning. Of a new year, in a way. That’s true. Right? It’s like, happy new year, Craig. Happy, 

Craig: happy new year to 

Todd: you. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? 

Craig: Yeah. It, I don’t know. You know, the older I get, the, the more quickly time just seems to fly by. I mean, it does feel like we’ve been doing this for a long time, but…It’s hard to wrap my head around that I’ve even seen 367 movies. 

Todd: Right? That is a lot 

Craig: of hours that we have put into this. And let’s, let’s be real. A lot of our episodes go over so more than 367 hours, not including, not including many soads, not including like special interviews and stuff like that. Yeah.

Todd: That’s, that’s crazy. We can’t even remember all the movies we’ve done. Oh no. We’ll bring movies up, we’ll be like, Did we do that? I can’t remember. Gotta go to the website and check. How lame is that? But some of that’s because we’re getting older too, yeah. 

Craig: I guess. But it’s fun though. You know, every, It’s, it’s kinda, I don’t know, it’s kinda cool to have something like this scheduled every week.

And at this point, we’ve done all of our favorite movies. Movies for the most part. Mm hmm. There are there are maybe a couple we haven’t done I don’t know like have we we I know that you’re just dying to do the exorcist that that’s Have we ever done the original Poltergeist? 

Todd: We haven’t no. Yeah, see so it’s a big one for both of us.

So there’s still a few out there there are still a few 

Craig: out there’s a few of our favorites that we haven’t done, but We’re kind of in a place now where every week we’re seeing something that neither of us have seen before. Yeah. And that’s, that’s fun. Now this week is kind of an exception because the movie that we’re doing this week is one that I saw during COVID lockdown.

And I watched it with Alan and I liked it so much and he did too. And I mentioned it to you. Uh, around that time. But then I just kind of kept putting it off. Every time you would ask what I wanted to do, it was always in the back of my mind. But for some reason, I think I like this movie so much that I was worried.

Todd: That I would hate it? No, not that you would hate it, but like That you’d have to spend an hour defending it? No, 

Craig: that I won’t be able to do it justice. Ah, yeah. I think it was what I was worried about. I’m excited. Yes. Because I watched it again, and I loved it again, and I’m super excited. Well, the 

Todd: movie is, uh, Little Monsters from 2019.

Not to be confused with Little Monsters, the Fred Savage and Howie Mandel movie, which, by the way, is the movie I assumed you were talking about when you brought this up. In fact, we’re so lucky that I happened to mention it one more time and you caught me, because I would have come here prepared to talk about that movie.

And you know 

Craig: what? That would have been fine. I’ve seen that movie so many times. Yeah. It even like Reese, I watched it recently. So if, if we had made that mistake, yeah, I did. It’s really good. It was, it was on one of the free, uh, streaming services and it still holds up. I think it’s a great movie that we should do.

We will do it sometime when we get around. I’d love to do another gateway horrors. month. Someday. We talk about these months all the time. We’ll see. Um, but that would be, that would be a good, that would be a good one. But no, this one is a 2019s and I don’t remember seeing any ad campaign for this movie. I don’t remember seeing a trailer for it.

I think it just popped up on Hulu and the cover features the star of the movie, well, the female lead of the movie, Lupita Nyong’o, who on top of being a brilliant actress is maybe the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Uh, she’s just stunningly, stunningly beautiful. And so, uh, and I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in, so that was enough for me.

Um, and I talked Alan into it, and we watched it, and I was blown away. Because you know that I’m not a big zombie. movie fan. Yeah, for sure. Of all of the sub genres, that’s probably my least favorite. And this is 100 percent a gross zombie movie. Mm hmm. But, it’s also one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.

Todd: It’s a sweet, cute movie. I, I, I think the reason why I hadn’t heard of it and you hadn’t really seen much about it, even when it came out, is because it was on a stre it was like an ex a streaming service exclusive. Uh huh. So many of these movies, Especially the ones up on Shudder. Like, if you didn’t have Shudder, you wouldn’t know about them.

That’s true. This one surprises me, though, because of the names in it. You’ve got Lupito Nyong’o, which, by this time, she had already done, I think, 12 Years a Slave, Black Panther, Star Wars. Star Wars. Yeah, she was right in the middle of, I think, between the second and last Star Wars of the three. She was about to do Us, and that was starting to get some excitement behind it.

So, there’s no reason why, on the strength of her alone, this wouldn’t have been able to garner more interest. And then… Josh Gad, who, I don’t know, maybe not everybody recognizes his face, but he, especially at this point, up and coming rising star with Disney. He was, what, LeFou in, um, the Beauty and the Beast live action, which I really liked, Olaf in Frozen.

I think, was he doing Book of Mormon at this time on Broadway or not? Yeah, 

Craig: well, it was probably, he had done it. That had been a while ago, but he had done it. He originated one of those roles, and he’s great. He’s a, he’s a really funny… Guy. Good singer. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, he plays so against type in this movie, that actually it was the director I read an interview with the director, Abe Forsyth, and he said he was really taking a risk by taking this on because he is 100 percent against type in this film and here he was building this, um, you know, career as this Disney guy.

Uh huh. It didn’t seem to hurt him at all. I think he’s doing fine. 

Craig: Oh no, he’s doing fine. In fact, he is currently in his second season of a television show called, uh, Wolf Like Me. Which is, uh, this director. It’s the same guy. Yeah. Do 

Todd: you know anything about this? Have you seen it? 

Craig: It’s been on my list to watch forever, and I haven’t gotten around to it, and I didn’t know until we did this.

That it was this guy, Abe Forsyth, who’s the writer and director of this movie. Is also, I don’t know if he writes it, directs it, if he’s just the showrunner, I don’t know. But it’s his show, uh, and Josh Gad is, uh, the lead, I think. 

Todd: Yeah, it is. And Abe Forsythe himself has done quite a few things. He’s worked as an actor, also as a writer director of many, many things.

Previous to this, he got a lot of good press for a movie called Down Under. Which, uh, was also a bit of a comedy, tread similar ground as far as, kind of, there’s like a, sort of a male chauvinistic douchebag character in it, but it was a little more 

Craig: dark. Well, all I know about Wolf Like Me is that it is a werewolf show, so like, it’s at The very least horror adjacent.

That’s why it’s been, uh, on my list and, and knowing now that it’s this guy, I’m totally into it because, or I’m going to be, because this movie, there are so many good things about it, but I, I think that one of the things is that it’s written so well and it’s so well balanced in terms of there is the gross out zombie stuff.

The zombies look Amazing. Yeah, like they’re they’re disgusting and the makeup is is brilliant. It’s so good, but then it’s also Got we should probably just get into talking about it. Cuz yeah, 

Todd: probably Well, it was an Oscar winning makeup team, by the way that did those zombies and they You know, definitely took a pay cut, uh, in order to do this movie just because they loved it so much.

And I also read that the zombies were all unpaid extras. Yeah, there were thousands of extras in this movie. And uh, they just went out, um, and just did a big call for extras saying, Hey, just play a zombie in this movie. And uh, they went to a zombie walk in Sydney and the crew members handed out flyers to people and just got a thousand or so interested folks and uh, got their zombie makeup applied by Oscar winning makeup guys.

So you know. I would totally do that. That would have been a blast, right? So it was, it’s a lower budget movie, but clearly a labor of love. Got a pretty strong cast and a very experienced and excellent writer director behind it, so. 

Craig: It really doesn’t look low budget. It doesn’t. It’s shot really nicely. I feel like there are like crane shots and stuff.

Oh yeah! Or maybe there um, maybe there are drone shots. That’s probably a little bit cheaper. Yeah, that’s how it’s all done these days. It, it, it had a very limited run, like for a week or two weeks or something. Um, it, it premiered at a festival and then different distributors bought it for different.

continents, but Hulu got it here. That’s why it says Hulu original. Well, the 

Todd: movie, when you talk about the budget and how it looks, and everything we’re saying about it, it is so similar to Cooties. You remember Cooties? Yeah, I do. It’s sort of like Cooties in tone and style, even like cinematography and degree of comedy and star power.

It just, you know, it’s just take those kids and make them six years younger and you’ve got this movie. Cuz cooties took place at an elementary school and this takes place with literal five year olds like all of the kids in this movie are five years 

Craig: old very very similar, but Even more so tonally, it was giving me Final Girls, because I cried at least twice in this movie.

Todd: You’re such a sap. 

Craig: It’s in my notes, and I’m crying. 

Todd: We’ll be fun. At the 

Craig: end, I won’t spoil anything, but she cries. And I’m cryin with her. Laughter

Todd: It’s cute. I don’t know if we were really crying in Cooties to be fair. It’s definitely not exactly like that in its message. And the director really sought out to make this movie like this. He wanted a sweet movie that had something to say about what kids can teach us and shielding the kids from the dangers of the world and also, but he wanted things in a more honest way than he had done before.

Because he had done some of these Judd Apatow esque kind of characters, is what he calls them, you know, these kind of douchey male guys who eventually, by the end of the movie, have to sort of change and grow up, you know? And he said that that’s always struck him as a little false, like… He didn’t ever really buy that, that character switch by the end of those movies and he wanted to have a, a, a movie where this guy actually seemed to go through a genuine change and this is the other guy, we haven’t even talked about him, but it’s, the movie’s basically three adults and a bunch of kids, uh, and he is Alexander England and I, he’s a, um, Australian actor and he’s done a lot of stuff, just nothing new.

Terribly big, at least that I know of. Alien Covenant, he was 

Craig: in that. Oh right, yes, he was. Uh, yeah. He’s Dave, and Dave is that guy that you just described. Like, and I think another strength of this movie Is the acting, like the, especially these three, uh, well no, not even especially, the three adults that you mentioned, Dave, Josh Gad’s character, his name is Teddy McGiggle, because he’s a children’s entertainer, he’s a children’s entertainer, and then there’s Lupita Nyong’o who plays Miss Caroline, who is Dave’s nephew’s kindergarten teacher.

Right. The three of them are so… Good like they’re just really really good actors and then usually we’ve talked about this recently, you know, you get kids in movies It’s hit or miss. These kids are f ing gold. Like, they are so cute and good. Ugh, I love these 

Todd: kids. The director had something to say about this too.

He said that they went through like 700 kids. Because this was a very per we are gonna talk about the movie, but like, he said this is a very personal movie for him. Because it’s directly inspired by some very… Direct parallels with his life. He, his five year old son, um, has some life threatening allergies, and he finally had to take him to kindergarten and put him in someone else’s care for the first time, and he said, that was pretty scary.

Yeah. And he and his son He was a chaperone for one of his son’s field trips, which was to a petting zoo, and that’s what happens in this movie. And he said while he was there at the petting zoo, he got the inspiration and the idea for this film. And so, so much of it probably feels so cute and genuine and real, it’s because it comes from…

Genuine experience with this guy, you know, as he’s writing it, he’s really relating it with his son and stuff. 

Craig: So, and yeah, that’s cute. He and his son are both in the movie. It’s adorable. They just have cameos. Okay, so but yeah, Dave is The guy that you just described before the Judd Apatow guy. He is a washed up Musician like he talks about being in a band, but we never see him playing with this band He’s just a busker and he’s not even a good one 

Todd: He’s really shitty.

He’s a bad singer, he’s a bad player. 

Craig: Yeah, he’s like, and he does a really good job of being really unlikable in the first part. Like, I just, I wanted to We hated him. I wanted to hit him a little bit, and I wanted to make him pull up his pants. Cause he always has his Pants down around his ass Now 

Todd: you’re sounding 

Craig: old Craig Well, I don’t care and like he’s really funny But in that Judd Apatow way where he’s just really inappropriate.

Yeah, and you know, like he caustic Swearing dropping the f bomb left and right even around his You know, what, this kid’s in kindergarten, so what, like, five year old nephew, um, making really lewd sexual jokes and suggestions, um, just smokes weed all the time, jerking off to VR, it opens up with him, um, fighting with his girlfriend, like, it’s all, all of the credits are just a huge montage of them screaming at each other everywhere, like, Let’s, let’s establish that this is not a healthy relationship right off the bat.

I just want to be able to go out and have a nice night for once. Is that too much to ask? One 

Todd: thing I 

Craig: f ed up in the last nine years. Yes, eight years in a row. It’s literally one of the most important things you I know the difference between literal and figurative language. You get 

Todd: something from 

Craig: me and you never let it go.

Come on, I knew it was your birthday. Because you saw it on I just want a little bit of respect. Why does everything have to be an argument? Why do you think? You’re the one raising your voice. But that’s the only way I can be heard. You’re like a child, Dave. I’m like a child? Yeah, you’re like a child.

You’re the one shouting at me, you started shouting first. 

Todd: Yeah, and then we really don’t see her again, do we? Well, 

Craig: well, she breaks up with him, so he goes in to stay with his sister, and that’s where we meet his sister, Tess, I think is her name. Felix is the nephew. This kid, I didn’t even write down his name, he’s a kid, I don’t know if he’s done anything else.

He is just a Adorable . 

Todd: He 

Craig: is, but we find out that he’s allergic to everything and Dave doesn’t like kids. Like he doesn’t even particularly seem to like his nephew. all that much. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s like he doesn’t care. Like he’s not. He has no stake in the game, right? He’s a guy, he’s his nephew, he seems to care enough about him, but he doesn’t care to expose him to, you know, he puts the VR gla uh, goggles on him and has him playing a zombie shooter game, which of course horrifies his mother when he comes home.

He’s dropping the F bomb all the time. I love that scene where he takes him to school for the first time. Oh god, I was laughing out loud. And he’s making comments about… The kid as they walk through and the kid’s introducing him to all of his friends as his friends come up and either make fun of him for bringing tofu and, you know, lame things to school because he has so many allergies and his mom’s trying to keep him healthy to the girl who comes by and kisses him on the cheek and then quickly runs away He looks down at him, he’s like, yeah, see, you’re already getting the puss, huh?

Craig: Oh my god, that was so funny! Yeah, the only thing, he, before that happened, he took, he heard the mom reading to the little kid from Roald Dahl’s The Witches, and she reads a line that says something like, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you, and that like seems…

to touch him. You do, you get the insinuation that really all this guy wants is to be loved. Yeah. I mean, he’s such a douche that you’re not really thinking about that at this point, but over the course of the movie, you realize he’s just, uh, God, I don’t know. And there’s reasons, there’s reasons for his behavior that come out later in an exposition dump that works like, yeah, because it’s a genuine conversation.

between people that feels very honest and it doesn’t just feel like an exposition dump. Right. But anyway, he tries to get his girlfriend back and he takes the little kid dressed as Darth Vader and this kid does Vader all the time and he talks in a Vader voice, a little kid Vader voice and he’s so adorable and that dynamic between the two of them, even here in the beginning, it’s already getting cute.

And, like, he’ll say things, he’ll, the, the kid’ll say, How was that, Uncle Dave? And the uncle’ll be like, It’s good, stay in character. And so he’ll go, he’ll go back to talking in the voice. And that, that carries out throughout the movie. Like, he’ll just throw, and he thinks, the kid thinks he can do the Jedi mind trick.

Like, or he’s almost there. That’s what he tells his mom at some point. I’m almost there. I’ve almost got it. It’s adorable. But yes, at school, I mean, it’s almost hard to even believe these kids bullying this kid, Felix, because Felix is so cute and sweet. And, but Dave, uh, they go into the classroom and Ms.

Caroline is there and I would react in exactly the same way that he does. He is just immediately. Struck. Blown away by her, which you would be I mean, she’s radiant! She’s standing there in front of, you know, a bank of windows, so she’s just in this heavenly glow, and Lupita Nyong’o is Stunningly, stunningly beautiful.

And then of course, you know, he sees her interacting with the children and she’s wonderful with them and they clearly love 

Todd: her. She’s got them wrapped around her finger. She knows exactly what to do. She’s like the perfect teacher. Yeah. That, 

Craig: and if you read viewer reviews, um, everybody will just go on and on and on.

Whether they liked the movie or not, they’re like Lupita Nyong’o is a goddess. And it gets kind of mixed reviews, but. Mixed in that it’s either five stars or one star. Like, people either love it or they hate it. And I just don’t, I don’t get, I feel like you must have a black heart and soul if you don’t like this movie because it’s so sweet.

Anyway. Eventually, like, he drops the kid off at school. There’s funny bits, we can’t, I wish we could talk about every joke, cause it’s so funny, but there’s like a, a bit where the one bully, the, I guess he’s supposed to be the big bully, is Max, and he’s kind of this chubby kid, and at some point he kinda, he’s going to his cubby, and he kinda has to scoot behind a door, and Dave totally smacks him in the head with the door.

That was pretty funny. But Dave leaves for the day and then comes back to pick the kid up, He overhears another teacher talking to Miss Caroline, um, and saying one of the parents who was supposed to chaperone the trip tomorrow, her kid is sick and so, um, she can’t go and they’re like, well, where are we going to find another chaperone?

And Dave’s like, I’m in, now let’s do it. So they’re going on a field trip to, what was it? It’s like… 

Todd: Pleasant Valley Farms. Yes. Right next to, as we see as they drive down on the bus, the camera dramatically pans over and there’s… An army testing base right next to it. I laughed out loud. 

Craig: So are there American military bases in Australia?

I don’t 

Todd: know that I did question that myself, but whatever US Army testing facility was what it was. Oh God, it was 

Craig: hilarious. Very, very funny. So they’re in the bus and the bus breaks down. So Miss Caroline. at the front of the bus with her little ukulele, um, is singing Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, and all the kids are singing it with her, and it’s just so cute!

And like, they’re, she’s adorable, like, she is just playing this role. It’s so genuine, I totally believe. That she is the best kindergarten teacher in all the land. Uh huh. And these kids are just in love with her, and it’s so cute, they’re having such fun together, singing that Taylor Swift song, which… I’m not a huge Swifty, but that song’s a bop.

Like, I love that song. You 

Todd: can’t hate that song. This was another thing. Apparently, the director said that he was at one of his son’s kindergarten performances, and there was a teacher up there with a ukulele, and the kids were singing Shake It Off. And he didn’t recognize it. He didn’t know it. He turns to someone and says, uh, what is that song?

And they’re like, oh, it’s Shake It Off. And he was like, this works so well for the movie I’m writing, and he said he went home that night and added it in. Mm hmm. Problem was, they couldn’t get the rights to it. Big 

Craig: shock there. I, I, I couldn’t, when I heard it, when I heard it I couldn’t believe, I was like, wow, I can’t believe they got this, this must have cost them a fortune.

Right, well, But it didn’t, I don’t think. No, because 

Todd: um, they’d struggled, and Lupita Nyong’o who took this just out of love, I think she agreed to this within 48 hours of being sent the script. They wanted her for it, they weren’t sure if she would take it, but she was looking for a role like this. It’s different from what she’s done before where she’s in a comedy and she’s happy and she liked the idea She could get to sing and she’d learn to play the ukulele all that stuff But they couldn’t get the song and she talked to the director and they were and she’s like look I’m really not even interested in doing this movie if we can’t get this song because it’s so cute It’s so much at the heart of what the movie is trying to say She had met Taylor Swift at one time and had told her that she was going to send her a letter someday.

So she sat down and wrote her an email directly asking her for the, uh, rights to this song. And she explained 

Craig: why. She explained why it was important to the movie. She explained why it was important to her. Yeah. And, and, and they got it. Taylor Swift. And that’s, you know, again, like I, I don’t have strong feelings about Taylor Swift one way or the other.

I like a lot of her songs. Um, I, I don’t, I Like have any of her albums downloaded, but if I hear them on the radio, they’re good Um, I think she’s a very talented musician, but she’s a smart lady. Yeah, she’s she’s very business savvy She’s 

Todd: taking a spending a lot more time in Missouri than she used to she is She is here one of these days.

Craig: Maybe she’s very polarizing here right now

Todd: Yeah, like margin 

Craig: hardcore Chiefs fans And I don’t know how they feel about it, but they should feel Let the girl watch some football. They should feel good about it because it’s getting them tons of exposure and publicity. Heck yeah. But anyway, it doesn’t surprise me that she would agree to something like this.

She seems like a very cool person. Yeah. And I do. It’s a great song and it’s super cute to watch the kids, but of course, Dave is, is too cool. He’s too cool for that. Yeah. The, the kids want to sing it again. She’s like, no, I think we’ve heard enough of that for now. And they’re like, we’ll sing another song.

And she’s like, no, but there’s somebody else on the bus who’s a professional singer and there’s a cute little. They talk about what it means to be a professional and stuff. And she asks Dave, because he had told her that he’s in this band, God’s Sledgehammer, which isn’t a Christian band, but he says it is because she’s a Christian.

And she’s like, Dave can sing us a song. He’s like, no, no. But eventually he gets up and he carries around his electric guitar with him everywhere he goes. Yeah, 

Todd: like a douche. Yeah, and a little mini amp so that he can play it. Yeah, 

Craig: it’s ridiculous. So he plays like this. Punk metal song that he wrote, and it’s about being abandoned by his father, and his father never thought he was good enough.

Which, the first time I watched the movie, I don’t even think that I paid any attention to the lyrics. The lyrics actually are kind of poignant, and, and significant later on. But he’s basically just screaming them. He’s a terrible musician. Yeah. And eventually she just tells him to stop. It’s like, I, I think that may be a little bit too much.

But then, they get, so they, they arrive there. But then we cut. To that military facility. Oh God. And it’s just a couple of people, um, riding around on one of those, you know, I don’t know what those are. You see people, those huge tunnels driving those like miniature jeeps. There’s a guy and a girl both in military attire at Right.

And they come upon. A zombie eating somebody and they’re like, Oh man, one of them got out again. 

Todd: It’s look, I love the economy of this too. You might as well. We know what, what kind of movie this is going to be, you know, don’t bore us and try to make this feel like this, you know, all this tense stuff, like make it funny and just get to the point.

Okay. They’re going to be zombies on the military facility. And I feel like the director is just winking at us like, all right. We know you know, so we’re just gonna make it funny and cut to the chase. Yeah, I love the premise that apparently this facility is down there because the American army is researching all of the dangerous Australian animals and plants and things.

I don’t know, you know, what he’s kind of reading off of their catalog and stuff as he’s going down there. Boom. There you go. Boom. Right. 

Craig: And it’s immediate, like, that one zombie kills one of those military guys, and then they hear over the radio, code red, code red, and they’re all out, and immediately, Night of the Living Dead style, like, logistically it doesn’t even really make sense.

Like, yeah, these people presumably just died, but they’re already like, in disgusting, horrible zombie shape. They’re bloody, their faces are all decayed and ripped off and Cuz why not? It’s just, it’s just disgu Right, I mean they look, they look great. They’re great looking zombies. Mind you, this is all in broad daylight.

The whole, well, most of the movie. And they immediately just start lumbering and they walk right past that sign that says Pleasant Valley Farms, 500 yards. Like… 

Todd: But luckily these are the slow moving kind of zombies, so it takes a little while for them to get there. But 

Craig: just a little while, I mean, they arrive at the putt putt.

Courts, and these Asian tourists, I guess, think they’re part of the attraction? 

Todd: Yeah, they were Chinese speaking Mandarin. I loved that little bit, because I could actually understand what they were 

Craig: saying. I wondered, I, I, I, I don’t know, I don’t know Mandarin. 

Todd: But that was weird, they introduced them, the one girl runs off, we see her again later in a scene, that woman.

Yeah, the young woman. And then we never see her again, right? 

Craig: That was kind of weird. Like, they made a point Did we ever see her face? I don’t think so. I feel like they made a point of showing us that she got away. Yeah. And then we just see her run past the screen one other time, then I don’t think we see her again.

I don’t recall seeing her as a zombie. But, uh… Miss Caroline and Dave and the kids are on a train pulled by a farm tractor and, and Felix is, like, he loves tractors, he’s obsessed with tractors, and, uh, the, the guide, the, the woman who works there, who’s driving the tractor, she has to stop because they’re going through, uh, pastures of sheep, but they don’t see any sheep until they come across a zombie eating a sheep, but she doesn’t know what it is, so she goes out and she’s like, uh, sir, what are you doing?

And he attacks her. So Miss Caroline goes down to see what’s going on and she sees that it’s zombies. And at that point Dave does too. So she, I love the, just right off the bat, immediately, she grabs a pitchfork and totally pitchforks this guy. Entirely through his torso like she’s not messing around.

Todd: Yeah, she’s gonna keep those kids safe. Yes, 

Craig: and that’s what I She doesn’t say it here, but she says it later and I think it’s appropriate to just That’s her job. And she says that outright. It is my job to keep these kids safe. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to do that. 

Todd: That was cool. I also liked her dynamic with Dave.

It’s very interesting because Dave clearly came on this trip because he is interested in her. And he’s a man on a rebound who’s going through a difficult thing. And so it feels a bit predatory, but also, you know. Maybe a bit odd, like you said, who wouldn’t be interested in her. Right. But he’s all there ready and willing to help and jumps in to help.

But then there’s a moment where she’s holding her hand up and he notices a ring on her finger. And he’s like, are you married? And she’s like, no, engage. It’s like. Oh. And at that point, he seems very uninterested. Uh 

Craig: huh. Dejected. He’s a 

Todd: big baby! He is! He doesn’t want to be there now, you know? But at this moment, where she’s like, Get in there!

You know, she’s yelling back at him. Start the tractor! Get the kids going! And he’s like, okay, he’s gotta spring into action, because he has no choice. He leaps into the front. He can’t even operate the tractor, but he’s coached through it by five year old Felix, who loves tractors. 

Craig: Right, who teaches him how to drive.

Like a stick. Yeah. It’s 

Todd: so cute. It’s 

Craig: adorable. And you know, just now saying he’s a big baby. I, I, he, he really is, but in thinking about it now, He’s able to rise. It makes sense for his character journey. Like, he really is kind of a big baby, like, he can’t take, he’s, he’s a narcissist. He, he’s really only concerned about himself.

He, uh, is ungrateful to his sister and, and treats her badly, even though she’s got everything together and she’s always there to catch him when he falls. When, when his sister finally has had enough of him and says you have to get out, he cries, or pretends to cry, to get her to let him stay. Like he, and like, like here, when he finds out she has a girlfriend, he pouts like a big baby.

He really is kind of a, a child. But over the course of the movie, and it’s funny because she has a surprising amount of patience. I, I get the feeling from the beginning that she does genuinely kind of like him. I mean, he, he’s nice to her, but, uh, there come points where he, uh, says something too much. Like there’s a, he gets into a spat with the, the heavy kid, Max, and she has to scold him.

So she does have her limits, but I like their dynamic too. And she. Probably just because she’s resourceful and knows… Dave’s the only other grown up in the room right now. So, she needs his help, and she has to rely on him too. And she does, and they work together. Well, 

Todd: and also, she’s a really good teacher, she knows how to deal with kids, so she should be able to deal with him pretty well, too, right?

Like she has the same level of patience, ultimately, that she has with the kids, she just extends to him, because he is sort of like, it’s better for him to kind of treat him like a kid. True. It all tracks, it’s really good. Well, one thing that we need to go back and mention is this child’s entertainer, Teddy McGiggle.

Oh, right. So, there’s, uh, we see early on that, uh, one of Felix’s shows that he likes to watch and apparently all the kids are into is this children’s entertainer who has a TV show called Teddy McGiggle and he has a little frog puppet that he talks to and does a silly dance and he’s, you know, just your entertainer that talks to kids like Giddilywinks!

Craig: Hi

ho, Teddy! Hi ho, Frogsy! Well, aren’t we having a super fun time on our trip down under? We’ve swam with the fish in the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve climbed to the top of the Harbor Bridge, and today, TODAY, we are visiting the Pleasant Valley Farm to meet and learn about all the cute Australian animals. I wanna cuddle some koalas!

I bet you do, Frogsy! Woo 

Todd: wee! And he’s American, but he’s, uh, in Australia on one of his world tours with his big red van. Yeah. And so when they show up, he happens to be at this, uh, petting zoo, and they do a little performance out in front. You can see the TV cameras are there catching it and all that. And then he kind of, you know, wanders off.

Yeah. Once all this stuff goes down with the zombies, they’re going away, like you said, on the tractor. She gets back 

Craig: on. She does get back on. I wanted to mention real quick, like, you and I have both… worked in education. You specifically have worked very closely with kindergartners. Yeah, this woman’s classroom management skills are like top notch.

She has the most incredible classroom management skills. And the reason I mentioned that we both have been in education is it. It reads genuine. It does. I believe this. This is very genuine. This woman, she knows How to keep these children calm. She, she cannot lose her cool. She has to keep her cool all the time and she has to keep a level of normalcy.

Yes. She has to keep them focused and keep it normal. And she does. And I love it. Like. There’s zombies all around and the kids are kind of getting scared.

Okay. Give me eyes on me. Who remembers how to play tag? Good. Well, those funny looking people out there are it. How to let the funny people touch us. Kongka!

Kongka?

Conga line, and just directs them quickly through this maze of zombies, and as silly as that sounds, and ultimately as silly as it is, I just loved it. I, I, I just thought it was the cutest, most clever thing, and these kids are adorable, and they’re such good actors too, like, they seem like real Kids. 

Todd: Yeah.

Well, and I think it works like you said, not just because of her, but also because of the way the kids respond. The kids are great in this movie. They got great performances out of them. As I was saying earlier, they screen like 700 kids. And he said he was very interested in getting kids who were five.

They weren’t going to get six or seven year olds and try to cheat it. He’s like, nobody buys that. And also, you’re just not going to get it. the same reactions as you are from kids who are that age. So it’s really important. So they go through the screening process and they get these kids and he’s like, you know, we, we put them through the paces and we, you could tell like which ones couldn’t focus and which ones would zone out after a while and you know, they got dropped.

But when you’re working with kids, you only get four or five hours a day and you’ve got to have breaks and all these things. And he said that when they were shooting, they, they realized that the, between nine and 10 a. m. was sort of like the magic hour for these kids. That was where they had just had breakfast and it was morning time and they still had a lot of energy where they could keep them focused and really get good performances.

So they basically scheduled most of what they needed out of these kids to happen in that one hour span. Wow. Of every day of shooting. Crazy, right? That’s 

Craig: hard to believe because there’s so much in it, you know, like. Yeah, right? It’s not like they can just put them somewhere and Go do things. One of the grownups has to be with them all the time, so those kids are present most of the time, but yeah, first they try to go back to their bus, but they see the bus driver getting eaten and he says they’re in the bus.

Go back. So they go back to, um, the gift shop slash visitor center, but it’s locked and Teddy McGiggles is locked in there and reveals himself to just be. Top notch asshole. Like, he could not care less about them. He couldn’t care less that they are children. He only, he is safe in there by himself, and that’s…

Todd: Well, you know, I saw this coming a mile away because it’s that kind of 

Craig: movie. Oh, sure. I mean, he was douchey from the beginning. Like, as soon as he laid eyes on Miss Caroline when all the kids were gathered around, he, like, called her up and was, had his hands on her and, like, he was clearly, you know, putting the moves on her.

It was gross. 

Todd: Well, it’s also pretty typical for these kind of comedies, and I think this might be where some of the critic, I didn’t actually read any of the criticism. I’m just, uh, trying to imagine and I’m also, you know, thinking about the movie, try as objectively as possible. As much as I enjoyed it, these are pretty standard tropes, you know, like we said, the, the Judd AAU big kid who has to grow up, okay.

He meets a woman who initially, you know, they’re. Sparring or it doesn’t seem like it seems like they’re unlikely pair then they develop a relationship and they have their moments It’s almost beat by beat sort of screenplay writing 101 and this same thing this guy who you saw as this Wonderful child’s entertainer that all the kids are love.

I knew was gonna turn out to be the biggest asshole of all of them It’s just Standard for these comedies. So I did feel like these things were a bit predictable. That’s fine because it was still a fun movie and We we sometimes watch the same stories over and over again and we still like them But if I were to have you know Some criticism for this movie and maybe why some people connected with it and some people just absolutely turned it off Is because of that.

Yeah, I 

Craig: don’t know either. You know what I mean? I mean, I I do I mean when you say it like when you say it that way I get it. I, I never felt that way. I never felt like it was stale. And, and I, I don’t know if that is a result of any one thing or a combination of things. The, the, the performances that I think are so good.

Todd: I thought that, I thought the plot was a little stale. I, I thought that the, the whole, like I said, it’s so close to, say, Cooties or… Anna and the Apocalypse, or Scout’s Guide to the And not just because it’s younger people who have to deal with zombies, but it was almost like it kind of hit the same beats.

You always know in a movie like this, there’s gonna be this point where everybody’s asleep and there’s no threat, and so that gives the male character and the female character time to spill their guts out to each other, and then find out that, you know, Hey, he really isn’t such a bad guy after all. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like there’s actually that moment in here. Yeah, and I saw it coming from a mile away too. And sure, I’ve got to say I was a little disappointed by that, but it’s fine. I, I expected it and I got it. So, 

Craig: well, yeah, I mean, they, they get in the kids for the kids. They find a way, by the way, these zombies are. A threat if they get a hold of you, but if I had a choice of running through a horde of zombies or not, I would choose not to, but if you had to, as long as you’re on your toes, you’re right, if you’re on your toes, you’ve got a pretty good chance.

They’re also… Mindless, it seems. Because they can’t, like, figure out how to climb things. Right. 

Todd: Or open doors, or smash Even smash through windows, they’re not doing that. 

Craig: Right, right. Um, so any obstacle in their way is good for you. Um, so the kids crawl through this little hole in the ground into like a play area, and the zombies can’t figure that out, so they’re okay.

Uh, Dave goes in through the ceiling, and he and Teddy mcg, mcg giggles. Teddy mcg giggles, they fight and he’s just so crass, like mcg giggles is just so crass. Everything he says is disgusting, and they get in a fight. And eventually, uh, Dave grabs mcg giggles by the balls and squeezes and mcg giggles, like projectile vomits

But he beats him up. Uh, or Dave beats me giggles up, and then he, he gets. He takes blows too, but he, then the kids are in there and at first McGiggles is being crazy, talking about how they’re all going to die because they’re still trying to keep the kids under the illusion that this is all a game. And McGiggles is like, it’s not a game.

We’re all going to die, blah, blah, blah. And he’s, he’s freaking, he’s scaring the kids. So she goes over to him. I loved this moment. She pretends that she’s hugging him, but really she Like, was it like a broken statue or something? Yeah. Mm hmm. She digs it into his side, and she’s really digging it in. Like, he’s crying, and this is when she said, It is my job to take care of these kids, and I will do whatever I have to do.

And I just, I liked seeing that kind of badass moment. Not that she hasn’t already been a badass, she has. But she’s so even keeled for the kids. Even in this moment, they don’t know what’s going on. They think she’s just giving him a hug. But she gets him to say, it’s a game. And then, uh, everything calms down for a little while.

While Miss Caroline and McGiggles are fighting, Dave gives the kids all five. food and Felix says, is this okay, Uncle Dave? And he’s like, yeah, yeah, it’s fine. It’s just chips. It’s just chips. But it’s been established that he has. severe allergies to everything. So, as soon as, uh, that fight between Lupita Nyong’o and Jess Gadd is over, we hear him struggling to breathe, and you kind of see him scratching, uh, at his throat.

Of course they know he’s got severe allergies, so she had an EpiPen, but… A zombie stole her fanny pack, and that’s where it was. But Dave has one too, um, and Tess, uh, Felix’s mom, had shown Dave how to do it, but of course, he’s an idiot, and he does it wrong, and he injects it into himself, and, you know, once you’ve done that, that’s done.

It’s not like you can just reuse them. So he says, there’s another one, there’s a spare in his backpack, but his backpack is on that train. They, all the kids left their backpack. And Dave says, I’ll go get it. But Felix says, no, don’t leave me. And, gosh, it’s so sad. The dad in me 

Todd: really, really felt this bit, actually.

I mean, it’s such a small bit, but I, that, that hit me. I hit me hard. Because I’m thinking, what would I do in this situation, you know? And I’m like, yeah, 

Craig: I… Well, and Lupita Nyong’o… Just jumps into action. She sees this. She sees him say don’t leave and she says I’ll do it. Um, and she by God she 

Todd: does Yep Gets that and brings it back.

Yeah 

Craig: comes back I mean she she has to fight through a bunch of zombies on the way there and we get to watch that and she fights Them with a shovel and she ends up like hacking several of their heads off with a shovel like she’s just a total badass. She gets to the train, um, it’s cutting back to Felix almost dying and he does not look good.

And Dave, of course, is just horrified and wracked with guilt, of course as you would be. And, uh, then, when she gets, she finally, when she gets to the train, all the kids backpacks are identical, so she has to go through all of them, and then she turns around to head back, and it is just an even bigger horde of zombies, and all you see is she takes a deep breath and starts marching towards them, and then it, and then it cuts back to the kids, and she comes Uh, storming back in.

Drops 

Todd: through the ceiling. Just, like, lands on her feet like a total stud, covered in blood. 

Craig: Just covered in blood. Like, she has just been through a slaughter out there. And she says, oh, they’re like, what’s on your dress? She’s like, oh, uh, I got caught in a jam fight. It’s strawberry jam, don’t taste it.

So funny. Funny and she gives Felix the injection and he can breathe and he says, thank you. Miss Caroline, and she says it’s my job Yeah, and then like Dave looks at her this woman Who has just saved his nephew’s life and not only that saved him from the predicament that Dave put him in Yeah, and he is just In love.

Absolutely in love. That may, gosh, I don’t remember where the times I cried. you cried? You 

Todd: said you put it down in your notes, come on, be 

Craig: honest. Well, we must not have gotten 

Todd: there yet. Well, Teddy hears a helicopter, he climbs up on the roof to wave it down, but he ends up falling off, and they’re, and, you know, because he would let them in, and the teacher is very reluctant to let him in, and I love this line, he yells in the door, he goes, You’re being a bad teacher!

F k your teaching method! 

Craig: Ha ha ha ha ha! 

Todd: Oh god. But you know, Dave goes out there and rescues him, pulls him up onto the roof. And then he has his little confession moment, which was so funny. I laughed so hard. And basically he’s just like, Ha ha ha, he’s just admitting, That he hates kids, and he doesn’t enjoy the job, and he was, uh, trained by Al Pacino, uh, as an actor, and he’s doing this shit.

And he says the only thing that gets me through it is f ing their moms. Yeah. It was, it was ridiculous, right? Like… Utterly ridiculous. Maybe a little too over the top. But at the very end, he says, And you know what? Teddy McGiggle isn’t even my real name. It’s Kevin. 

Craig: Or whatever, something 

Todd: weird.

That line was genius, I’m sorry. And he’s 

Craig: like, I don’t, I don’t remember what he said. It’s, he’s like, it’s, it’s Stephen. And Dave goes, Stephen McGiggle? Stephen Schwartz! Like, I don’t remember what it was, but something like that. Something like that. Yeah, that part wasn’t my favorite part. No. It was dumb. I think Josh Gad is a really, really funny guy.

Um, and a lot of that felt improvised. Yeah. I imagine the director probably said, Here’s the direction. I want you to take it. Take these 

Todd: concepts and do it. Yeah, I mean, it’s just, it’s just silly for the point of being silly. It’s 

Craig: become very unreal. And at one point, he goes, What’s that terrible smell? Oh, God.

It was, I, I can’t lie. It was me. I shit my pants. I was gonna try to blame it on you. Oh, God. It’s crazy. Okay, so, um, we find out that the army has plans to drop a bomb on the visitor center in the morning. But now it’s nighttime, and Caroline sings to these kids. The sweetest song. Well, I’d like to visit the

moon On a rocket ship high in the air Yes, I’d like to visit the moon

But I don’t think I’d like to live there

Though I would miss all the places and people I love. So, though I may

like it I don’t want to live on the moon. It’s adorable. It’s a beautiful little lullaby. They finally get the kids to go. to sleep. Isn’t this when Dave and Felix have a cute little moment with Felix’s girlfriend? 

Todd: Dave and Felix? And Felix’s girlfriend? Oh, I don’t remember that. 

Craig: Yeah, I, I, No, it’s not quite there yet.

We see that all of the parents of the missing kids are gathered, but the army is keeping them out. And there’s hilarious dialogue where the army guys are like, What’s going on this time? Ugh, it’s zombies again. Slow ones or fast ones? Slow ones. Oh, well, that’s good. Okay. Well, shoot anything that moves. 

Todd: They stand around their table and they slap down and unroll a map and it’s just the like cartoony visitors map of the petting zoo instead of like, you know, satellite map or something like that is what they’re using to plan their invasion.

I mean, it’s so corny and and that’s Kind of nice. I mean, again, it’s like the filmmakers winking at you. Like, yeah, you know, what’s going on. The army’s coming in. They’re going to become a threat too. They’re going to want to bomb the place. So let’s just, let’s just have some fun with that. But I 

Craig: just think that it’s also funny because in these zombie movies, it’s always at the end, you know, at the very end, the army comes in and like gets things under control and this movie treats.

It like, well, that just happens sometimes like, that’s just, that’s, I mean, that’s part of the job for the army is cleaning up zombie 

Todd: outbreaks. 

Craig: Oh God. Uh, Tess, Dave’s sister tries to call her and leaves a tearful message and says, you know, please just tell Felix, I love him. And oh my God, it’s so cute and sad.

This 

Todd: is like, again, it’s so typical Tess and Dave have their moments. So now, you know, we get this. point where Dave can tell his sister suddenly how much he appreciates all that she’s done for him. And I was kind of rolling 

Craig: my eyes at that. Well, that’s later. They don’t, they, he does call her or she gets through to him later.

You’re right. That’s later. All the kids are going to sleep, but Felix’s little girlfriend, Beth, is scared. And so Felix says, my mom says a rhyme to me when I’m scared. And it’s this cute little rhyme about little monsters go away. But Dave. Um, busts in and says it with them. And at the end, Felix is like, How did you know that rhyme?

And he said, Your mom used to say it to me too. That’s back when I was Boo Boo. Boo Boo was what the sister called him. So, the, all the kids go to sleep. And then, Dave and… Aubrey, which he finally calls her. He’s been calling her Miss Caroline all along and she keeps saying, you’ve really got to call me Aubrey.

He finally calls her Aubrey and apologizes for, you know, all of his bad behavior, but then they have a heart to heart and you’re right. Like this, like I said before, it’s an exposition dump, but I don’t. Mind it, because it feels so heartfelt and it’s sweet and funny. Basically, his story is he didn’t want to have kids with his ex.

He admits that, you know, they broke up and she immediately got with another guy. But it was really his fault because he couldn’t commit and she wanted kids and he didn’t. And it’s because he’s scared he’d be like his dad. His dad left them, totally abandoned them for another family, which caused his mom to…

Um, and, and she was hospitalised through all of their childhood, and so his sister had raised him, and he wasn’t even, uh, you know, grateful for her. And like, yes, it’s a little bit trite, but… It’s so it’s played so genuinely that I don’t mind and then she tells her story. She’s like, you know, I wasn’t always The perfect teacher and and she talks about how she was kind of a wild child and at 18 She ran away from home to follow a band.

She followed them to Australia and Until she ran out of money and when she ran out of money she broke into One of their hotel rooms, and she said, I would have let them do anything to me. He goes, what happened? And she said, as soon as Taylor came in the room, they called Zachariah or something. And he goes, Taylor Swift?

And she says, no, Taylor Hanson. The band that she had been following was Hanson. The band that she was willing to let do anything to her was Hanson. That’s hilarious. And he’s like, wait, like, mm, bop? And she’s like, mm hmm. MmmmmmBAMM. Ahahahahahaha.

Todd: Well, big surprise too here, right? She’s not actually engaged. I saw that coming a mile away as well. Oh, 

Craig: obviously. Well, I mean, she’s a smart girl. She knows what’s going on. We, you know, all those dads are hitting on her. Yes, throw a ring on that finger. Maybe it’ll deflect some of them. Mm. Not all of them, I’m sure not all of ’em , um, right.

But anyway, she fell into teaching ’cause she was broke. So she took a job as a teaching aide and she fell in love with it. And now it’s like her life calling or whatever. Yep. Um, and he offers to stay awake and, and, and keep watch. And that scared me to death ’cause I thought he was gonna screw up again.

But he doesn’t, he just wakes them up in the morning and they’ve, he’s got a plan they gotta get out of there. His plan is to go to the train, but when they talk to McGiggles about it, McGiggles is like, I’ve got this great van and it’s got a hatch in the top for my puppet so we can drive it up and get the kids in there.

Yeah. And they’re like, oh, that’s actually a pretty good idea. So McGiggles and Dave both go to the van. I’m trying to hurry because this isn’t all that exciting. Um, I mean, it is in the movie because they have to traverse the… Zombies and all that. Well, 

Todd: uh, there is a bit here. And this is, you know, again, a little bit of criticism for the movie was the pacing.

The movie slows down quite a few times. And the zombie threat is not ever present. It seems like they could stay locked in that room forever. Like as long as they had food and drink. But they don’t. They ate up all the chips. But like, they’re not fending off zombies left and right. They’re suddenly not like, somebody breaks in the back door or whatever.

And I felt like I was a little, ugh, is, are we gonna move the plot forward? They don’t know that the army is gonna be bombing them. Right. So they don’t have that urgency. Uh, I felt like the movie could have used a little bit of urgency, you know, at this point. In any case, they gotta get the kids out, cause there’s no food, and uh, as they’re running away, Teddy is like, scared out of his mind and freaking out, until he comes across the playground, which is where the kid zombies were.

And suddenly, he has a new lease on his zombie taken out life, and starts brutally taking out these kid zombies. And this movie is not afraid to cross lines. No. I kind of like that about it, that the kids are zombies, and he is killing them. Ha Yeah. And, and each time he’s like, I f ed your mom, and I f ed your mom!

I, I thought that was…

Funny, even though it was really silly. And also, I was really impressed they were willing to go there and take out the kids. 

Craig: Yeah, there are kid zombies throughout. Yeah. I like that, too. Well, anyway, they get to the van, but Teddy betrays them and locks the door, and so Dave can’t get in, but then… His sock 

Todd: puppet, Froggy, is a zombie 

Craig: now?

Yeah, that was hilarious. Like, you see the puppet come out from the back, and then he gets killed. Dave climbs up on top of the van, which the zombies can’t figure out, so he’s up there. He talks to his sister on the phone, apologizes to her, yeah. And then he ends up dropping his phone. Then there’s a sequence where the kids all of a sudden are like, Where’s Felix?

And he’s gone. And you see him running around outside in his… Darth Vader outfit and like fake lightsaber fighting with the zombies and stuff and pew pew like the video game Yeah, yeah, there was never a question in my mind of whether or not they would kill this kid I knew that they would not oh, of course, but if this still made me very nervous Mm hmm because he’s just running through them.

He doesn’t know the stakes. They’ve told them that it’s a game Mm hmm, so he doesn’t know the danger and he finds this little lamb that we’ve seen before But he gets cornered in the lamb’s pen. Now, um, does FelixJediMind trick that gate? 

Todd: I guess, yeah, that’s the only explanation for this. The only other way you could explain it, although I was looking for it and I didn’t see it, is that the zombies, as they’re piling against the gate, sort of end up closing it themselves.

Right. But it sure looks like he’s used his force powers to close the gate. 

Craig: It really looks like 

Todd: it. And then the next scene we see, he’s not there anymore. I thought he was going to be trapped or 

Craig: something. I did too. But no, he actually comes to the rescue. The next time we see him, he is coming, um, he’s driving the tractor, pulling the train, coming to rescue his uncle.

And it’s hilarious, because he doesn’t know how to drive, so he’s like running over stuff and going, Oops! Like, it’s, it’s, It’s really cute and really funny, and, uh, he picks up Dave, and Dave gets on and he says, See, I told you you were the bravest kid I knew. And that was before. Before Dave left to go try to get the van, the kid is like, But you’ll be back, right?

And he says something like, You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever met. And I was crying. 

Todd: Well, now that I think about it, that’s probably what gave him the… The impetus to run out on his own in, uh, Darth Vader costume. So in a way, he kind of put him in danger. Yeah, 

Craig: it was really sweet. Anyway, so they pick up all the kids, they get them all on the…

Train and they because these are slow walking zombies like the tractor doesn’t even go fast like that tractor could go faster than that It could but they’re just going like two miles an hour and the whole horde of zombies is just following them But miss Caroline is playing the ukulele for the kids and when she’s and they’re singing along but anytime a song ends the zombies like And somebody says it’s the music And so every she’s playing 

Todd: these songs!

This was so silly, this bit. It 

Craig: really was! Um, and the She plays, if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, and the kids and the zombies clap. And, and it is, it’s really silly, it’s kind of funny. It’s 

Todd: kind of funny, I think you could have cut this whole bit out, I would have been just fine with it, honestly.

Oh, you 

Craig: could, yeah, it’s fine, I mean, they’re getting away, they’re, they’re coming towards the army. First, the army just sees Miss Caroline and Dave, and they’re just gonna kill them. They’re like, they could be infected, just, you know, take them out. Because this is 

Todd: a standard military procedure for zombies anyway.

Right. 

Craig: And then they’re like, wait, do you hear that? It’s singing. And they’re like, who’s singing? And they’re like, wait, it’s kids. And the major, whoever’s in charge, like, kids, Ugh, I can’t shoot kids. Not again.

Todd: So they don’t shoot the kids. They all catch up, and all the kids stream off. In the meantime… Uh, Dave is super excited, he’s telling the military, he says, It’s the music, the music, just sing to them, you can control them. And they just break out their guns and mow these guys down. Mow them right in front of all the children.

Yeah. That bit 

Craig: was hilarious. And then you see stealth bombers fly overhead, and an atomic bomb, not really, but a huge bomb goes off at the camp, and there’s like a mushroom cloud and everything, and Miss Caroline’s like, look, kids fireworks. Uh huh. Then guys in hazmat suits start grabbing the kids and throwing them in the back of a paddy wagon.

Audrey 

Todd: kisses him, you know? You knew that was coming. Oh, 

Craig: right, they kiss in front of the mushroom cloud. Yeah. That was, yeah, she kisses him, and, and like, I don’t remember if she pulls away, I think she pulls away and says, I’m sorry, and then he kisses her. Yeah. It’s really, like. Typical. This is obvious, right, that’s obviously where it was going, but at this point, I don’t know Todd, I was just so into it, like I loved it, I, through this whole thing, I was laughing, I was crying, I was so, I was nervous, even though, if they had, you know, you said that this movie isn’t Afraid to like cross lines and I agree they do kill children.

There are lots of children zombies You do see those zombie kids brutalized by Josh Gad But if they had killed any one of these kids in this class, I would have been out like now Yeah, never mind. Don’t like it. So I’m glad that they were sensible In that way, and it was silly, it was cute, but anyway, at the end, so then it cuts back to the military facility, and it’s all of the parents, and the major comes in, and was like, they’re like, where are our kids?

He’s like, all of the class is safe, uh, we just have to keep them in quarantine, and they’re like, but wait, how could that be? And he’s like, well, it’s a miracle, it was their teachers kept them safe. They’re like, teachers? They only have one teacher, and he’s like, no, there’s Miss Caroline, and there’s, Dave.

And Tess is like, that’s my brother. And he’s like, it’s unprecedented. Nobody has ever survived one of these things. And the, the parents are like, well, they must be so scared. And he’s like, come with me. And he takes them to like this huge, enormous room. That’s dark, but in the center of it, there’s a clear plastic tent, and all of the kids are sit and Dave and Ms.

Carolina are in there, and all of the kids are sitting around, and Dave is playing the ukulele, and they’re all singing Shake It Off together. Yeah. And it’s so… cute and then like all the parents are sitting there watching and it does a close up on Tess and you just see the Tears running down her face and I’m crying too.

Like it was so sweet It was so sweet and I cried. I I didn’t cry. It 

Todd: was so cute! No, I admit that it’s cute and I think you know this movie isn’t gonna be for everybody because maybe even many of our listeners don’t have the patience for a a super cute movie like this. It’s trying to be cute. It actually works.

But it’s also, like I said, very paint by numbers as far as the plot goes. It’s very simple. You don’t ever really feel that the kids are in real peril. And a lot of it sounds kind of written and silly, you know, because it’s just a silly comedy. And so you don’t really take any of it seriously. Look, that’s not a criticism.

That’s the point of the movie. It’s just that kind of movie. But if you go into this, not expecting that, if you think it’s, you’re going to feel danger and you know, it’s, it’s going to be realistic. Uh, it’s not, it’s a bit of a parody, but it’s got a lot of heart to it as well. And, and emotional depth that I was not expecting, honestly.

Yeah, I liked it too. And I would recommend it to. 

Craig: Yeah, I, I would too. And Alan really liked it. Like, he really liked this movie. And that very rarely happens, uh, with horror. So, I’ve been trying to get my sister to watch it. She’s like, oh, I don’t like zombie movies, they’re so gross. And I’m like, well, the zombies are gross, but it’s not that, it’s not, it’s really not scary.

It’s, it’s more so sweet and cute. I really think that she would like it. In fact, I recommend, she’s been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with her tween daughter. Um, and they’ve both been really enjoying that together. I feel like this… Is similar in tone, you know, there’s there’s some a little bit of scary stuff and there are definitely scary monsters and stuff But it’s really more of a story about people I I really dig these types of movies and I’ve been excited to talk about it for a long time So I’m glad and and I I watched it that one time with Alan in quarantine Hadn’t watched it again.

Watched it again yesterday and was nervous thinking gosh, I have such fond memories of it What if I have oversold it to myself in my mind and I enjoyed watching it again so much So even on a second viewing it stood up for me So yeah, if you haven’t seen it and I think a lot I don’t think a lot of people have seen it Honestly, so if you’re one of those people and haven’t seen it, I highly, highly 

Todd: recommend it.

Yeah, especially for people who are just looking for a com it’s kind of a good mixed crowd movie. You know? There’s some comedy in there, there’s some cuteness in there. Romance. There’s the horror. The horror’s not really that horrible. Um, it’s a clever parody. So, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s good. It’s not like Shaun of the Dead level clever, but, uh, it’s aspiring to that.

And again, I, I, again, I, I still liken it to Cooties, to Anne and the Apocalypse, Scott’s, Scout’s Guide to the Apocalypse. Although those could get a little darker than this movie ever gets. And I’m kind of tired of these movies to be frank with you. Like, I don’t know if I can, I don’t know if I could watch another zombie.

Parody movie. I’m, I’m starting to feel like you with the zombie stuff to be honest, but maybe for me It’s the zombie comedy thing feels like do we need to keep making these? I Don’t know how many more they’re gonna be Why not some like vampire comedies or, I don’t know, something different Anyway, we said that we were gonna do something special for this episode And one of the things that’s really nice is that over the last couple years, we have had our patrons, uh, who have been really supportive of us behind the scenes, who have supported us with their money as well, and uh, have given us the opportunity to do things that we were never able to do before.

We are a lot more active on social media now because we’re able to be because of their support. Uh, we’re reaching out more and I think gaining some new listenership, updating our website, doing some things, and also trying to figure out some ways to give you guys more content and um, more value. And one of the things that we discussed with them was what’s something that you would like us to do and one of them recommended Hey, we would, uh, like to shoot you a like a voice message Maybe every now and then you could feature a listener on your podcast and I thought that was a really cool idea So I just reached out to our patrons and we said hey if you guys want to send a message to us in honor of this One year just do it this way and we sent them a link and I kind of set all that up And we got some responses, and we want to feature a response from each person, uh, over the next, uh, few episodes and maybe make this a regular thing.

Um, we’re opening it up to everybody out there, so that you can go to our website, there’s a little link on there. The platform we’re using is called SpeakPipe, it’s free. You can just click there, all you have to do is punch in your name and your email address, uh, and you can send a quick, uh, 90 second… MP3, just record it right there on your computer or your phone, and then that’ll get sent to us.

Uh, and we can respond to it and maybe feature it on one of our podcasts. So today is the inaugural day where we’re going to start doing this. We would like to listen here to one of our lovely patrons and longtime listeners. Hi guys, 

Craig: this is your loyal listener Andreas from Hamburg in Germany. I just wanted to congratulate you and say thank you for Unbelievable, entertaining, funny, dramatic 365 episodes.

I’m not ashamed to say by now I’ve listened to every one of them. I’ve enjoyed them all. I’m 53 and I have seen quite a few horror movies in my life. But through your podcast, I’ve discovered some real gems I didn’t know before. Also, I’ve seen Vampyrus Lesbos, which was easily the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.

So congratulations again, you two are great, and I hope that the next 365 episodes will be just as great. And Todd. Stop torturing Craig with obscure Argento stuff. He really is suffering. Bye.

That was 

Todd: amazing. I don’t believe for a moment that you’re suffering, but I don’t know if I could even fulfill that promise, but. 

Craig: Andres from Hamburg gets me. It’s, it’s good to know that people out there, you know, have my back. Laughter

No, it’s really cool. I, I can’t, you know, as I sit here in my living room, in my modest house, in small town middle America, it, it just kind of blows my mind that somebody in Hamburg has listened to all 365 of our episodes. It’s, uh… It’s amazing. It’s 

Todd: amazing. Flattering. It’s really flattering, actually. Yeah, gosh.

Craig: And, uh, so complimentary. Man, I wish I could shake the guy’s hand. Thanks. Thanks. That’s, that’s really cool. Thank you, Andreas. Yeah, and shoot us, uh, you know, we won’t play the mean ones. I can’t imagine if, if you’re that, actually, if you’re that motivated, if you’re that mad, go ahead and that might be fun.

No, I’m just kidding. Um, but if you, uh, if you want to shoot us a message, uh, I encourage it. That was really fun. I hadn’t heard that. That was my first time hearing it. So thank you very much. I hope we can get more of those in the future. Yeah, 

Todd: thank you, Andreas, so much. And once again, just go to our website.

We actually have a new address now. The old one still works, but ChainsawHorror. com will get you to our website as well. It’s a little easier to remember and to type in. Just go there and look for that link for SpeakPipe. We also have started an email newsletter. Those are kind of hot right now. If you would like to join that, it’s totally free.

Just click on that link there as well. Put in your email address. Stick in your birthday if you want. We might send you a little something on your birthday, but you don’t have to just your name and your email address And we’ll get you on the newsletter as well. Well, thank you again and Craig. It’s been a wonderful year of episodes I’m looking forward to another Two three four more years at least 

Craig: knock on wood

Todd: Until we run out of movies.

Like your mom said, she can’t believe there’s this many horror movies, so… 

Craig: Yeah. She said that at like 50. That’s right. 

Todd: We’ve proved her wrong, I’d say. We did. Well, thank you so much for listening, and once again, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With two guys and a chainsaw.

Happy Halloween! Not to be confused with the Wayans’ horror-comedy of the same name, our Patrons chose the obscure 1991 independent film, Scary Movie, for us to review on this special day.

This fascinating movie was a labor of love for 19 year-old writer-director Daniel Erickson, who seemed to bring together the entire acting community of Austin, Texas, to fulfill a piece of his vision. Starring a fresh-faced John Hawkes, Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster) and a supporting cast of nobodies, the film has a lot of grit and heart, but ultimately…well, we thought it was a bit of a slog, despite the shock ending.

Still, Halloween spirit abounds. If you’ve ever enjoyed a haunted attraction in rural America during this time of year, this will at the very least transport you right back to that place.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Stay safe out there.

Scary Movie (1991)

Episode 266, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And here we are, Craig, at Halloween, finally! This was one of those great months where, uh, we got to squeeze five in instead of four. I 

Craig: know, but, it’s weird, like, this is a long Halloween month and I still feel like it’s snuck up on me.

Like, I feel like I haven’t done enough fun things. I haven’t even watched Hocus Pocus once. 

Todd: What? What? No, that is unbelievable. I thought that was your Halloween tradition. It totally is. I thought that was like, you know, 

Craig: September 30th. Nah, we’ll get it in. You still got 

Todd: time. Yeah. You have hours. You can do it.

Yeah. We’ll cut this short. We might have to anyway. Oh boy. So, uh, as you might remember from our last episode, we decided for the last two weeks of this month that we would put it to our patrons, uh, to decide which among about a half dozen or so, um, movies that we had isolated from our long list, which ones they would like us to do.

And this movie had been recently recommended a couple times and, uh, I was Kind of happy that it got picked because I had seen it on some lists of Halloween horror movies that you need to check out And I knew I had never seen it before. It is 1991’s Scary movie, not to be confused with the 2000 or 2001 film, Scary Movie, with the Weyand Brothers.

Right. Which is a comedy. This is not a comedy. This is like a decade, about a decade before, and… It’s not? It’s not a 

Craig: comedy? What is it that I don’t get it. I know, 

Todd: right? Fair enough. It’s almost an unintentional comedy. Actually, I think there’s probably some There’s quite a bit of intentional comedy in here, but the whole movie So there’s a reason why we haven’t seen it before.

This movie has languished in obscurity because it turns out it was a 19 year old’s film. Is 

Craig: that true? Yeah. A 19 year old kid made it? 

Todd: Fine. Nineteen year old adult. I think you’re technically an adult after you, uh, No, you’re a kid. you’re nineteen. You turn eighteen, right? 

Craig: I don’t, you know, legally, shmeagly, you’re a child when you’re nineteen 

Todd: years old.

Daniel Erickson. Does that explain some things, though? Does that give you a different take on 

Craig: the movie? I guess. I honestly didn’t know that until you just said it, and… It tracks. Like… Yeah. It looks like something a 19 year old would throw together. 

Todd: You remember what the other movie we saw that this was giving me vibes of, except I liked the other movie a lot more.

Is it Don’t Go in the Woods? There’s Nothing Out There… Oh God. Oh god, no. It 

Craig: was so, it, there, it was like a little glowing alien and lots of throwing cats. Is that what you’re, is that the movie you’re talking about? 

Todd: Yeah, it was also done by like an 18 or 19 year old guy with a script he wrote when he was 16. But his parents were editors.

Is that the 

Craig: one that they say that like, scream? Stole from it, like 

Todd: Yeah. It got meta, where, you know, there were moments in there where they were talking about Like, there was a character in there that talked about scary movies. They broke the fourth wall, yeah. Yeah, there were weird things where they would jump up and swing from the boom mic to get away from the alien and stuff.

I had seen that movie before we watched it, and I really thought it was charming, even though it’s not a good It’s not a great movie, it just has a lot of heart. And especially when you hear the story behind it, it’s like, oh yeah, that, that was pretty fun. Like, you could just imagine yourself with your buddies, gathering up the resources to shoot a movie over a couple weeks.

I mean, I’ve done that myself. 

Craig: Right. It was dumb too. Like, it was dumb too, but it was goofy and funny and fun and Yeah, like honest to God. I watched this movie 24 hours ago. I don’t remember anything about it. It is terrible like I have a page full of notes. They make no sense to me. I have no Boy like

I had never heard of it You know, I didn’t one of the options for our vote was Halloween for and I was all I wanted to do Halloween 4. I was all excited about it. My friend 

Todd: Paul Rudd is in it. You were really sure that they would. I know. It was close. Yeah, 

Craig: it was close. 

Todd: We have to honor the votes. Yeah, no recounting on this one.

I know. Don’t storm the Capitol on this vote. And 

Craig: so whatever. I had never heard of it, but I’m like, okay, fine. Give it a shot. We do like old movies. You know, I think uh, what the truth is, is that our patrons Like when we do terrible movies because sometimes those end up being really fun episodes and I don’t disagree They do sometimes end up being really fun episodes, but oh my god, you’re not paying us enough

Like we’re gonna have to like bump up the premium or something because Movie, I swear took a year off 

Todd: my life. I finished the movie And I got online immediately to text you just to see that you had texted me about an hour before that saying that you were in the middle of watching it. Yeah, you were like, this movie is horrible.

And I was like, yeah, this may go down as this is a strong contender for one of the worst movies we’ve ever seen. That being said, we have not. We’ve seen some dreck. We still have avoided the dreck of the 

Craig: dreck. Oh, yeah, there’s way worse, I guess. There’s 

Todd: worse, you know, there’s shot to video garbage out there.

There’s so much garbage out there that we haven’t even touched with a 10 foot pole. That’s true. It would certainly rank well above this on the scale of worst movies of all time. So, it’s, it’s not entirely fair to trash this movie and say it’s the worst thing we’ve ever seen. So far, as far as I’m concerned, that still goes to…

The Within the Woods movie, because that movie, that movie was so incompetent and so loony and the acting was horrible. The acting in this movie, by comparison, is several notches above. 

Craig: I’m not sure that I agree that it was worse than this movie, but I will agree that it was a bad movie. But again, it was still kind of fun to watch, because it was…

Such a mess. Yeah, and so silly this movie isn’t even fun to watch like out of the gate I’m telling y’all skip it like it is a waste of your time Those terrible movies, especially like, you know, the really really cheap stuff that gets made today with attractive actors with no talent at all You know, I I accidentally put one of those on every once in a while and I can tell within the first five or ten Minutes.

No, this is Awful. I’m not going to sit through this. That’s how I felt with this movie. I swear to God, without a doubt, I would have turned it off if we weren’t watching it for this. I would have turned it off and never looked back and I wish that I had had that 

Todd: opportunity. But we are dedicated to the craft.

I 

Craig: know, I know. So I had to like rage watch it now. Uh, it was, it was disappointing. I don’t know. Like I, I, I try to find something, something nice to say, and I just can’t think of anything in this movie. It’s, it’s boring. The story is really stupid. Nothing happens. At the end, spoiler alert, I won’t say exactly, but you find out that Nothing really did happen.

Nothing really did! Nothing 

Todd: happened! This is one of those times when you say nothing happens and it’s the absolute truth. I have to say, after reading about And I had this feeling, I was like, this movie comes across as some very inexperienced person’s labor of love. Like the whole community got together to help out some poor schlub who, gosh darn it, wanted to make a movie.

I saw that in the very, what, there are two trivia things on IMDB? And one thing says that the mayor of Austin, Texas, in 1991 when this premiered, In one theater, which I think is all it ever premiered in, declared that day as Scary Movie Day because of the boon to the Austin film community that this movie was.

And I have to admit I have to admit The economy. Yeah, I mean, it employed people. Right. You know, the movie was shot on film. You know, it’s, it’s One of the things I noticed immediately was it’s 16 millimeter. You know, cause it’s a square screen, it’s pretty grainy. I was like, alright, definite. Old school, 60mm, independent film vibes.

Lots of people in this movie, almost none of whom are experienced actors. And then, the people who are experienced actors, or have at least some promise, are not doing very well. They’re quite early in their career, in this movie. We’ll get to that in a second. Yeah, okay. And then, it just comes across as, I think there are ideas here.

Like, On paper, I think the script looked intriguing. And I think that got everybody on board. And if you were to pitch this movie and this idea to someone, it would be very intriguing. And it would be a bit unique. The twist is pretty unique. I think the movie had a lot of potential, and I think that there is the…

There is some style behind it. This is why I rank it better than Don’t Go Into The Woods. I thought Don’t Go Into The Woods was just sloppy. It was a mess of a movie. It wasn’t shot in a compelling way. It had no style. This is really going for style. Like, there are shots in here where if you froze the frame and you looked at it, you’re like, oh, that’s nice.

Like, the lighting is good and there’s smoke where it needs to be and there’s good composition here and 

Craig: Oh my god, there’s smoke where it needs to be? You mean everywhere? Like, they just had a fog 

Todd: machine on. I mean, other times you’d freeze the frame and you’d just see white smoke. You’re 

Craig: being far too kind.

I thought this cinematography was pedestrian at best. Like, I didn’t think that there was anything compelling going on there. It 

Todd: was pedestrian, but it had its moments, and my point is, somebody was trying. They were failing, but I could see that somebody was trying, and probably learned a lot along the way.

I mean, sure. You know what 

Craig: I’m saying? Yeah, I mean, if one of my high school kids made me this, like, made this movie, and showed it to me, I’d be like, damn, 

Todd: good job! Like… Right? Wait, good for you! 

Craig: But… 

Todd: And that’s… That’s basically what it was. I 

Craig: guess. I guess. And if we’re gonna, if that’s the standard by which we’re gonna judge it, great.

Good job, 

Todd: kid. Yeah, that out of the way. Yeah, that out of the way. Objectively speaking, it is. It is mind numbingly boring. 

Craig: I mean, I have no idea who funded this movie, but you should’ve, like, you should know when the very, very first thing that you see is the credits and it says, generic movies. That’s the name of the production company, like, I should’ve known.

I should’ve 

Todd: just turned it off. You know what though? I think this movie is trying really hard to be clever. I think that’s intentional. I mean, generic movies is, they’re trying to say, I mean, then the title card, Scary Movie, comes up and has a barcode underneath it. What the f was that about? I think they’re trying to be cute, like, like horror movies are just a dime a dozen, they’re a product, they’re a commodity, and here we’re, we’re throwing another generic horror movie at you.

I, I think that’s what… They’re trying to say 

Craig: and then were they gonna like try to like Just kidding. Yeah Because they didn’t like I don’t know you’re right I get it. I understand what you’re saying when you say like the script on paper It’s a semi clever idea, but it’s a one trick pony and it goes on for far too long Yeah, the movie is only an hour and 20 minutes long and it feels like it took me A week to get through it.

I 

Todd: know! But, I get it, like, Me too. I was watching, I was checking my watch ten minutes in. 

Craig: I don’t even, I don’t know even how to go about, you said, we’ll talk about this later, you said, you know, these people were all like, you know, nobodies or earlier in their career. The, the guy, I don’t even have it in front of me, the guy who played the main kid, Warren, um, his name’s John Hawks, he’s been in, Everything!

Like, I don’t recognize him, really, from anything, but I looked at his IMDB and he just has dozens and dozens, I don’t know how many credits, a lot, um, and 

Todd: he’s He’s an Academy Award nominee. For what? Winter’s I think Winter’s Bone? Yeah. I’m not I’m not positive. It was for something. I mean, he has been in 142 things, including 

Craig: Something we did, something we reviewed.

Todd: Oh yeah, several things we’ve reviewed. Uh, the new Marvel thing, Marvel Wastelanders, Doom, I don’t know, it’s some kind of podcast series. He’s in that right now. But yeah, no, From Dusk Till Dawn he was in, we haven’t reviewed that yet. 

Craig: Identity? Is that with that? Mmhmm. At the motel. I think he was like, like the guy behind the desk at the motel.

Mm hmm. That’s right. That’s the only thing that I recognize him from, but he’s been in a ton of stuff. He’s terrible in this movie. 

Todd: Rush Hour. I still know what you did last summer. You know, talking horror. From Dusk Till Dawn. He was in, uh, in that. Uh, Night of the Scarecrow. Congo. Uh, The Marshall. Like… 

Craig: I think I vaguely remember him from Congo.

Yeah. That was a terrible movie, too. But yeah, but, but the point is, like, look at this, this kid went on to do great things in a bit. Yes. You know, like, I will say for him, I think he was really trying. I think that he was really trying to give a quirky… character performance. It’s just very over the top. He’s kind of like Eugene in Greece or something like he’s so Awkward and not to that extreme but close.

Todd: I would say he was probably a casualty of the way He was directed. I’m sure in every scene the director was like, I want you to look scared out of your wits more nerdy more 

Craig: nerdy 

Todd: Yeah, right, and you take all these little scenes individually and all right, that was perfect. That was a great take That’s exactly what I go for and then you string all those scenes together And that’s all he ever is he barely says anything.

He just looks wide eyed Everywhere. Like, every tiny little thing. Actually, it made me laugh. I would say, like, if you want to laugh at a movie with your friends, definitely, this is a strong contender. Because it’s so baffling. This guy is so scared of everything. It made me, it reminded me of, you remember that, that movie that was shot at someone’s house for a little while?

Uh, it was a famous, um, cinematographer. who worked for Orson Welles, uh, called Trick or Treat that we did. John Carradine was in it, otherwise forgettable, but there’s this hilarious scene where some trick or treaters come up to their house and they are completely freaked out by some, uh, paper Halloween cutouts that are taped to the door.

Oh. Like the camera zooms in on them and zooms in on their eyes and zooms in on the cutouts again and zooms in on their eyes and you’re like, give me a freaking break. That’s exactly what happens to this guy. Throughout half of this movie. I felt bad for him. Most of what he’s freaked out about is paintings on the wall of this haunted house On the outside.

I felt bad for him because I 

Craig: felt like he was just getting manhandled and pushed around the whole movie like His friends are dicks, he gets hooked up with this girl who, oh god, she’s a dick too, I don’t, I, I honestly, like, I’m looking at my notes, they make no sense to me because I don’t remember what happens.

Well, I just Nothing 

Todd: happens! When you talk about the germ of an idea. Right? And you talk about what this movie could have been, but it just didn’t, it just isn’t well made. Um, it starts out with him tossing and turning in bed. And he gets these visions of this reaper looking guy with this very stylized skull mask, which…

What I thought looked cool. I would actually like that mask. I like that 

Craig: mask too, but by the time it showed up again, I had forgotten that it was in

Todd: the beginning. That’s right. But he’s freaking out. There’s a storm outside. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s very stylized. It’s, uh, you know, bad with the light streaming in the window. Fog in his room for no good reason at all. Ha ha ha ha ha. But, yeah, he’s tormented. And he’s scared. And you’re like, okay, this is a, this is a scaredy cat.

And then, uh, the next morning, we get this kind of crane shot that kind of swoops in on, it’s just a farm. It’s like a rural farmland area out in Austin apparently. Where there’s a group of people putting together a haunted house, and it is a huge team of people. Just takes us through this haunted house, where the sheriff is running for re election, so he’s walking through and handing out flyers for re election to everybody, and they’re doing some minor chatter, but what we hear come over the radio…

On this Halloween day, convicted killer John Lewis Barker is being returned back to the federal facility for the criminally insane tonight. Earlier today, Judge Andrew Sykes declared a… Mistrial of the case of the psycho killer, and tonight authorities are transporting Parker out state. The federal facility for the criminally 

Craig: Insane.

Yeah, so like there’s this loony on the loose because a farmer’s cow escaped and the Loony bus. Had to, like, swerve to miss the cow and it crashed. Yeah. Oh my god, Todd, like, I, my notes, I, like, after we see the carnival, or whatever it is that they go to, I say, big guy drooling in the back of a loony van, and then, and then Warren and his friend at a haunted house looking for girls, and Shelly is a bumblebee, and she goes up to…

Warren’s friend is like, let’s pollinate, and then they kiss for a solid minute. 

Todd: While Warren stares at them, and the whole time, there is a bearded guy in a red shirt behind them that I cannot take my eyes off. And he’s just staring 

Craig: and smiling. I think he’s just an extra that doesn’t realize that he’s in frame.

Like he’s just watching them shoot this. 

Todd: Right? At first I thought this was a director’s cameo. He’s in there. So many times, like every time they come back to this group. And he’ll be like in between them. So like two characters will be talking and this guy’s like head is right between them, not quite looking at them.

Just kind of like looking around and smiling like he is in awe at everything around him for I forgot. 

Craig: I, I swear to God I remember nothing about this. And then, so then, Warren has a girl, too, and her name is Barbara, and she’s a bitch, and she’s dressed as… And I say she’s a bitch only because, like, she just, for the whole movie, toys with him.

Like, in one moment, she’ll be stuck up and push him away, and then in other moments, she acts like she’s… And like, something’s going to happen. I don’t know. I didn’t care for her. And I don’t, I don’t know what she was supposed to be dressed as like the bride of Frankenstein. I don’t know. She was 

Todd: just in like a, she looked 

Craig: to me like Angela from night of the demons.

Except a little bit less cool. 

Todd: There’s awkward Twizzler eating. Oh my God. That’s what I have. 

Craig: She tells him that she steals from restaurants. And she’s got like salt shakers in her purse, whatever, and then I said, She forces him to eat a dirty purse twizzler. She just has loose twizzlers in her purse that she pulls out and forces him to eat.

Yeah. I swear to God, my next, my next note is this scene is so bleeping awkward. Um, last weekend when I was at that wedding. On the way back, my mom and I were listening to podcasts, and I was like, there’s a new episode of our podcast out if you want to hear it. And she’s like, yeah, put it on. So we listened to the, um, uh, the Lady in White.

Is that what that was called? Mm hmm. And at one point she said, you say that word too much. The F word.

So I guess I’m getting a little bit too raunchy, so I’ll, I’ll try to be better. Sorry. For your mom. My 

Todd: mom. You say that word too much. I bleeped those out. That, didn’t she appreciate 

Craig: that? Well, I didn’t, I just, I just let it go. I didn’t want to comment 

Todd: on it. Or was she just thinking of all the effort I have to put in?

She’s probably not really being judgmental of you. She’s just probably feeling bad for all the effort I have to do to cut them out or to bleep them. 

Craig: Maybe. Maybe. Or for the. Poor souls that are being corrupted by my by your f by your f bombs. No, it’s terrible. Yeah, that’s right Okay, so she makes him eat a dirty purse twizzler, and then she well, I 

Todd: thought that yeah, go ahead I thought that this stealing all this stuff from the restaurant And leaving it in her purse would be a plot point later.

I thought this was a setup for something. 

Craig: The salt comes out again at some point for some reason. I don’t even remember why. I think just somebody just salts their food. It falls 

Todd: on the ground! Oh, and he picks it up! I think, see, this is what I’m saying. I think this movie was supposed to be funny. I think they’re trying to make jokes here.

There is a point where he’s running from the killer. Supposedly, inside the haunted house, and he’s got her purse, and he drops the purse, and all this stuff spills out, and the salt shaker opens up, and there’s salt all over the ground, and he dutifully scoops everything up into the purse, and then goes to the salt, which is just in a pile on the ground, scoops it up, takes the time to scoop it into his hand, pour it back into the salt shaker, and screw the top back on, before he puts it into his purse and continues running away.

I, I was just baffled by that scene, and then I’m like, oh, think they’re trying to make a joke. 

Craig: Well, I wasn’t really listening to you, because I was looking at my notes, but did you also Did you also say that Thanks, Craig. Not only does he scoop up the salt, but then he takes a pinch of it and throws it over his shoulder.

Did you say that? Yeah, 

Todd: in the middle of it. Yeah, uh, yeah. Sorry. I thought I thought he was gonna throw it in somebody’s face or something. I thought he was gonna use her butter knives that were in there. Like, there’s nothing except this, I guess, gag. But, it’s so hard to do jokes in this movie, because the whole movie’s kind of a joke, because it’s slow, everything that they’re saying is stilted.

The scenes are just… It’s puzzlingly long and awkward, and I’m thinking, is this what they were going for? Is to show how awkward this guy is, because it’s working, but also it just feels like bad filmmaking. It’s like they didn’t know, they didn’t know how to edit this. They didn’t know how to speed up the action to the point where it was interesting.

They didn’t have any discipline to cut things that weren’t working. Ugh, this guy, anyway, we are, we are treated to like, what, 30 minutes at least, maybe 45, of them just waiting outside this haunted house in this group of people, and it’s nothing but scene after scene of him freaking out. over a bird cawing, over the paintings of skeletons on the side of that thing.

He bumps up against a rattlesnake cage, which is just sitting out in the open for no good reason, and it rattles at him, and that freaks him out. His watch goes off all the time, and that freaks him out. I mean, it’s a cartoon caricature of this guy who is just… On the edge of panicked all the time. Well, and his, 

Craig: like his, God, I don’t, his friends aren’t nice to him.

Like, at some point, a group of 50 year old teenagers comes and starts hitting on his girl. I say his girl just because they paired him up, like, she doesn’t seem to have any interest in him. You know, like, before they go into the haunted house. She says something provocative to him, like, Are you gonna try to take advantage of me in there?

And she gives him like a slutty look and walks by and his friend like does the, you know, like, tongue in cheek blowjob symbol. But I don’t think that she is into him at all. I think that she’s just messing with him. And they’re always messing with him. And when this group of, like, 50 year old teenage boys come and like flirt with her, She kind of plays Damsel in Distress to get him to stand up for her, but then when he does, the guys just, like, rough him up, and they all laugh at it.

Oh, 

Todd: no. Well, what do you know? Come on, we’ll give you a cut. Thanks, but no thanks. Come on. You’re going in with us. No, JJ. I said no. No. I guess she doesn’t want to go.

If I wanted to hear from an asshole. I’d fart. Better watch out, JJ. He’ll beat you up. 

Craig: Yeah, don’t make 

Todd: me use my karate.

You think you’re a real comedian, don’t you? Pal. I don’t like meat. Oh, you’re so much. You are playing with knives. Stay out of it Barbara. This is between me and the comedian. What’s going on here? What’s going on? Party’s over, pal.

This dude pulls a knife on him. He kind of freaks out, and then he stabs him with the knife, and I thought, holy shit, but it was a retractable 

Craig: knife. Oh my god, there was no suspense there, that knife was the fakest looking knife I’ve ever seen. Yeah. 

Todd: He acts like he was stabbed, like he is groaning and bent over for like a full minute.

And I’m not sure, again, I wasn’t sure if that was a choice, like, we’re trying to show that this guy is so unhinged and so ready to be scared. Like, a character building thing, that even this fake knife hurts him. Or he thinks it hurts him. Right. But it doesn’t play that way. It just plays stupid. 

Craig: It does play really stupid.

And I just, I kept typing the dialogue because it was so… The farmer, the farmer who is not a character in this movie at all, says, You make me want to crap green onions. What? 

Todd: What? I wrote that down too. That’s the line of the movie as far as I’m concerned. 

Craig: And then the, like, they just pull dialogue.

Directly from bumper stickers. Like if I wanted to hear from an asshole, I’d fart. Come on. Come on. One of my favorite. One of my favorite scenes. I’m just looking at all these lines. I wrote down. One of my favorite scenes is they start letting people in the haunted house or whatever. And the, the, the Barker is like, let me welcome you to my charming home.

And then a few minutes later, Silence. Somebody bangs on the door and he opens it up and it’s a dad carrying a little girl and he, uh, he looks at the bark and goes, she couldn’t hack it.

Todd: Like, of 

Craig: course not. My God, it’s so funny. And then there’s like, so people finally get in there. Now it’s even before our main group gets in there, that shady business starts going on in there, isn’t it? Like there’s, there’s one room. You know, it’s a typical haunted house where you walk kind of from room to room and there’s a setup and one of the setups is a guy, a masked guy, like a gross, like a gross, deformed mask, um, and he’s got like a butcher’s apron on and he’s got a big old butcher knife or whatever and there’s another guy tied to the table, you know, classic, typical stuff.

He’s, you know, hacking this guy up or whatever. But at some point, The guy on the table is like, hey, we need more beer, and so the guy with the knife goes away, and then they make it look like… Do you remember how this happened? 

Todd: Alright, so, just before this, there’s a kid who’s holding a werewolf doll, and he sneaks in there, and…

He sneaks in through the back door, and I guess the idea is that the back door was now left ajar. Right. Even though he could, you could just swing the back door open, there was no lock on it or anything. 

Craig: No, the door was locked, but he found, there’s like a cut, like a cutout space near the ground that was hidden by a hay bale.

Todd: He does. But then, when he comes out, he’s, he comes out through the back door, and it’s not locked at all. There’s a, it’s clearly visible, like, where a padlock should be. It’s just a swinging deal. I guess I 

Craig: missed that, because later, he uses, he uses that… I don’t secret entrance more than once. You’re right.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. 

Todd: This is baffling to me. Even having seen the whole movie, I cannot make heads or tails of this. He’s looking at the barn, like something weird is going on in the barn. There’s this implication, because we’ve seen the paddy wagon that has, uh, you know, avoided the cow and crashed and held the insane, the guy from the insane asylum, uh, has crashed and the cops are there and they can’t find the guy, he’s run off.

The, the driver of the plate, of the truck was dead or whatever. And now this kid, who’s just snuck in there and now opens the back door, sees something in the shed. Barn, not shed. Goes to the barn, which is, I don’t know, you know, 50 feet away from the back door of this haunted house. In a quiet area of the farm.

Kinda looks around in there and then leaves again. But, of course, the camera and the music and everything is making it, you know, it’s setting us up for this idea that the escaped lunatic is in the barn, and then, oh no, the back door of the haunted house is left ajar. And so that’s what happens just before this.

And so, like what you said, when the two scare actors in that one scene, the guy on the table, by the way, do you know who he was? No. Eddie Munster. 

Craig: Oh, funny. He lives 30 minutes away from me. Did you know that? No, is it? Yeah, Eddie Munster. He lives in Macon, Missouri. Are 

Todd: you serious? Yeah. Is he acting? Is he doing theater down there?

No, I don’t even 

Craig: think he does anything. They have a big community theater down there and I don’t think he does anything with it. I, I assume he’s still there. I never heard that he left. Yeah. 

Todd: So that’s the biggest, I mean, aside from the kid, the kid, uh, Warren, who we just said is a big time actor now, he wasn’t at this time.

Eddie Munster is the biggest actor they have in this movie. And he must have been living in Austin or something. I feel like these are probably all local people. Anyway, yeah, you’re right. He says, go back and get me a beer. So, Jer goes back. Pops a beer and then we go back to that scene where the dude on the table whose name is Eddie as well Oh funny.

Yeah, it’s like yelling. Hey Jed, Jed, you coming back out? You coming back out? There’s a new group coming through hurry up hurry up And then a dude comes in from the back wearing the freaky mask and of course the implication is this is not Jed This is somebody else. He doesn’t say anything. He goes right over to where they have a real knife Yeah.

A real butcher knife. Which they’ve made 

Craig: obvious, because like, both of them stuck their knives in the butcher block between groups of people, so that we’re fully aware these are actual 

Todd: real knives. Yep, they set that up, which is stupid, by the way, don’t ever do that at home. And then it has this scene where the guys, those jerk adult teenagers, come in and see the scene.

And this is, you know… This bit of the movie, being a Halloween movie, like, this brought me back. This is what these haunted attractions usually are all about. They’re cobbled together by the local Shriner’s Club, or the local Rotary Club, or school group, or something to raise money. So it’s all these volunteer people in there, just…

Throwin some stuff together to, to have fun. And then the people who come through it are usually dicks. Ha ha ha! I know this because my dad and I used to put these together for the middle school when we lived in, uh, in Warrensburg. And, you know, people just come through and it’s like, just come through and enjoy.

Right, no. No, they gotta come through and they gotta mess with the props. And they wanna, like, yell and I don’t know if they think they’re being cool or they wanna show how not scared they are, whatever. And these guys are being dicks. And they’re just standin there, ah Hack him up, hack him up. And we don’t see him hacking the body, but the implication here is clearly that This guy’s murdering this man in front of them.

Yeah, and 

Craig: you see blood splattering 

Todd: everywhere. And the guys look a little disturbed, but then they start laughing again. They’re like, ah, ha, ha, man, that looks real real, that’s pretty good, blah, blah, blah. And then they go out of the room. 

Craig: We’ve seen this before. Didn’t we do a movie just last year? I don’t know, one year, where it was like a haunt.

Was it called Haunt or something? Yeah, I think so. It was a haunted attraction, and they were really killing people right in front of people, but of course you think it’s fake, so. And that’s one of the, that’s one of the fun things about Halloween. You could murder four people and just throw them on your lawn and people think you were just being festive.

Todd: We’ve talked about that so many times, right? 

Craig: Right. But doesn’t, don’t we find out immediately that we were. Tricked? 

Todd: Yes. Some random dude pulls the mask off, and he’s like, Hey Eddie, that was pretty good acting. And Eddie pops his head up and is like, Yeah, that was a lot of fun, or 

Craig: something like that. It’s just a different haunt worker.

Yeah. Because the other guy, the guy who had been wearing the mask, is the dad of the little kid who snuck in, and he’s dealing with him and saying, You know you’re not supposed to be in here. Take woof woof. Take woof woof and get out of here. Oh my god, come on. Meanwhile, our main characters aren’t even inside yet.

No. And Warren looks at his ticket and it’s 666 and like, he gets scared by a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake, why? Why does, why, there’s a rattlesnake in a, like a terrarium that, oh god, so stupid. Yeah. But then. Barbara has a monologue about Halloween. This is so exciting,

Todd: Warren. Halloween night. The most thrilling holiday. Christmas is too expensive. Thanksgiving’s for turkeys. Easter’s for anyone who believes rabbits lay eggs. The

Halloween.

Creatures of the door

Craig: But then they finally, finally get in there. They 

Todd: take five steps inside . Yeah. Brad and that other girl immediately just start making out . Yeah. In the middle 

Craig: of the corridor. Right. And then Warren, so awkwardly kisses Barb. Like the approach is so slow. Bro, just get there. Um, and after he kisses her, she yawns and then walks away like buh buh buh buh Like, literally, like singing to herself.

It was so 

Todd: weird. It has to be one of the most awkward kisses I’ve ever seen on film. It just, it was just bizarre. Cause he’s got his same wide eyed wild look. As he’s leaning in and and the two have barely exchanged, you know, three words it what’s the motivation Is it because he saw brad and the other chick kissing?

I 

Craig: guess like he thinks he’s gonna get lucky in there because brad did the blow job deal But like I have in my notes here. We’re halfway in and nothing Has happened. Nothing has happened. Oh, and then my next note is they have a real nail problem. In this haunted house, they have a major nail problem because it seems like four or five times somebody gets snagged on a huge nail sneaking out, sticking out of the wall.

That’s a liability issue. 

Todd: It really is don’t do that either guys Hammer those nails in And no real weapons 

Craig: and then so then barbara’s away. Everybody else has gone ahead of him. And so Warren or whatever his name is is by himself and there was one scene where he was walking through the haunt Looking for them where the film quality was so bad that I couldn’t even believe that they kept it in was that the case on your whatever you watch?

Yeah, it was just terrible like it looked like a static ETV from 1983. 

Todd: Warren is kind of by himself, and this haunted house is like, you know, for the big crowd of people that was outside of it, it is just empty as hell when it needs to be, with nobody else going through there except for him and these people, and the building itself does not match.

No. The cavernous interior of this place. No, these These scenes inside are actually kinda cool. At one point, he comes across a table that has Oh, another thing you don’t want in your haunt is real candles. And this place is also filled with real candles. Uh huh. Uh, major fire hazard. But there’s a table with, uh, filled with candles, and it looks like, uh, sort of a satanic altar or whatever.

Cool, that he just walks by and is spooked by, and then He walks past a window and somebody reaches out to grab him and he’s spooked by that. And then he passes by, he sees a dude pulled under a wall. And again, it looks like it could be a scare actor, but maybe it’s not. And then sort of behind a bed in the next scene is there’s like a bedroom scene, but there’s nobody in it except for this guy, kind of from his dream.

Right. Big hooded figure with the mask, with the big scythe. And he’s like, Stabbing that guy awkwardly, because it’s weird to stab with a scythe, behind the bed. And he sees that, and I think we’re supposed to think, is that the guy murdering them? We’re still not quite sure. But he’s freaked out by that too.

Craig: And he hides, and then it’s like, the scene is kind of intercut with a lady on the news talking about how the killer is still out there, and the killer is like, God. I feel like we’re trying 

Todd: We forgot to mention. Yeah, we forgot 

Craig: to mention! At some point, one of the scare actors… Stopped Warren and it was like, are you one of those kids making trouble in here?

Cause I guess those 50 year old teenagers are making trouble, right? So he’s like, are you one of those troublemakers? And he’s like, no, I swear I’m not. I’m just looking for my friends. And then that scare actor goes away or something. And now this. Psycho with this the scythe is chasing him. I guess following him I think would be a better way of saying 

Todd: it following him is a better way to put it But 

Craig: Warren gets a hold of the scythe.

I don’t know he cuts the well the 

Todd: Killer’s handoff, the killer comes into the room. I think it’s that bedroom actually. And he knocks over a bunch of candles from a candle labra, and the killer slips like a Looney Tune’s cartoon on one of the candles, falls on his back and. Warren gets to scythe, and as he stands up with the scythe and the killer stands up, somehow he swings the scythe around and almost inadvertently cuts this guy’s hand off.

To which point he holds his wrist, and he screams, and Warren run drops the scythe and runs away, I think. And 

Craig: then I don’t remember who said this, I just have the quote. I don’t remember if it was on the news, or if it was the sheriff. Somebody says, Every year, something’s gotta happen. People going in, not coming out.

This happens every year? Like, Maybe you should not have this festival. 

Todd: Oh my god. So then, this all, just At this point, just like kind of all, I don’t want to say all hell’s breaking loose. We’re with Warren most of the time, and he’s going from scene to scene. I think, 

Craig: uh, But there’s an announcement on the PA, everybody get out right now.

Something has happened. Everybody get out right 

Todd: now. Yeah, and the cops have shown up, and they’re trying to get Jared to evacuate the place because they’re afraid that the killer’s inside for some reason. Right, but what? Who told them? 

Craig: Right, I couldn’t, like, they say something has happened, get out, and I have in my notes what happened.

Yeah. 

Todd: Nothing happened. Or at least what happens anybody knows about. Yeah, nothing happened. The guy got his hand 

Craig: cut off, but I don’t think anybody knows that. No. And then the sheriff walks towards the camera and says, damn it. And then either, and then either he or somebody else says, let’s go get us. A mental patient.

Oh my god. 

Todd: No, I think that was two random rednecks who we never see again. Maybe, I don’t know. But I guess what happens is the sheriff and his people hang outside for the next hour. Doing nothing. While we follow Warren through this whole place. And as they’re evacuating, he’s going over a bridge, and he slips and falls and ends up in this snake pit.

Which is full with fake snakes. And he kind of goes crazy, maniacal, laughing. 

Craig: Obviously fake snakes that he is terrified of when he finally falls down. He’s like, Oh, they’re fake. But I think he, this kid is losing that. Like, I don’t, I don’t know how together he was to begin with. I think maybe, 

Todd: yeah, I don’t know.

This is why I say or I said earlier on I honestly think the filmmakers are trying to be clever here like from the very Beginning with him and those dreams and all that stuff. This guy has been scared of his own shadow the whole time They’re really setting this guy up. He’s a sandwich short of a picnic this guy, right?

Yeah, and that just early on it just plays as stupid. Uh huh. And as it goes on it’s still really stupid but Like he picks, like you said, like he picks up one of these rubber snakes and like bites its head off as he’s cackling. That was so 

Craig: weird. And then that that kid, that kid is back and. He helps Warren out of the pit, and then Warren finds Barb’s purse, and then there’s a Hellraiser room.

I wish we had spent more time in the Hellraiser room. That was my favorite set piece, and he just, he just walked through it twice. And then they see, he’s kind of with the kid, and they go into, there’s like a, uh, pendulum, like a pit in the pendulum room, and there’s like a headless body, and Warren freaks out, and the kid goes, What’s the matter?

It’s only pretend. Dude, calm down. And then I have in my notes, then Warren is running scared. And I said, from what? Like, I don’t even know what he’s running from 

Todd: at this point. That’s the problem. There’s no tension here for us because we have not seen anything chasing him. Every now and then, you know, except for that moment when that guy got his hand cut off, we really don’t see anything.

He runs into the room and he’ll spend, you know, five minutes in this room just wandering two feet, you know, scared out of his wits, but nothing’s pursuing him. He spends a good minute and a half trying to push over a cardboard coffin. To like, I don’t know, block the doorway or something? It’s like, what is wrong with this guy?

You know, it’s just baffling because you’re watching this movie, and you know what kind of movie it is, and I’m just thinking, does he have the problem? Or, is this movie just so poorly made that they’re trying to convince us that he’s having a hard time pushing over this cardboard coffin? It’s just stuff like this that, that made it hard to watch.

That’s, yeah. And hard to take s Yeah, I don’t He picks up a chainsaw. And there’s this sort of Evil Dead style, again, the movie had ideas, right, like Warren looks, it’s a close up on his face. The, it kind of dollies back and the chainsaw is in the foreground and, you know, it’s supposed to be that, you know, Evil Dead like the chainsaw.

He picks up the chainsaw, tries to start it. I didn’t hear the sound of a started chainsaw. But anyway, he wildly swings the chainsaw toward a curtain. And, you can tell that it’s not running, like, the chain is still. And then when he looks on the other side of the curtain, there’s a guy who’s fallen there.

But he hasn’t cut the curtain, but apparently he cut the guy? That’s what I said, 

Craig: in my notes, Warren Kills question mark? Innocent guy with chainsaw? Like, I don’t know. But I’ll tell ya. Yeah, go ahead. At 

Todd: this point in the movie, I figured it out. I wasn’t sure I had figured it out, but I was like, I wonder if…

He’s just cuckoo bananas. Mm hmm. I wonder if he really is running from nothing. 

Craig: Yeah, I didn’t put it together I feel like an idiot. I don’t know. I mean they made such a Such a big deal throughout the whole thing about this lunatic Escaped and I mean he is 

Todd: haven’t really seen him. Yeah. Well, 

Craig: not really I mean we’ve seen a hulking figure in silhouette put that Mask on the same mask that he dreamed about earlier and this guy, like I said before, I said chasing isn’t the right word following is more appropriate.

Like he is kind of following Warren around, but anyway, I don’t know, Warren gets up on the roof somehow and then he falls into a pile of pumpkins and then he points where he, I don’t know where he got a shotgun, but he finds a shotgun and points the barrel of it at his own Face. There, there are so many cautionary tales in this movie that there’s another thing not to do.

If you find a shotgun, do not pick it up and point the barrel of it at your own face. Fair enough. Oh God. And then he stumbles through the pumpkins and then I have, then he’s trapped. Behind a plywood 

Todd: wall. Ha ha ha! He’s very excited he’s found an eye hole. This reminded me of, um, Funhaus? You remember Funhaus?

Yes. Where that girl is trapped behind a fan. Yes. And I’m just like, why don’t you just stop the fan and go through it like you’re right there. And the people on the other side, they could hear you if you just stopped the fan. Ha ha ha! 

Craig: A plywood wall. We already know they don’t hammer in their nails. He could just push that over.

Todd: God. 

Craig: You did good, couldn’t you? But the killer is behind him, and then we So Warren jumps in a grave… And then the, the guy is like standing over him, I guess, and he 

Todd: shoots, and the guy This was the one well framed shot of the entire movie. I don’t remember it. But just before he jumps in the grave. I’m gonna put it on the website.

This is gonna be the feature shot. Okay. Again, if you saw this still, you would be like, Whoa, this, this movie has some style. He’s sitting scared up against a coffin with a pile of pumpkins next to him, and in silhouette with smoke coming out behind him. Just over his shoulder is that figure as an image.

It looks great. But as a moving picture, it doesn’t really work But you’re right. He jumps into this grave that they have inside here man. God do not build this haunted house people It seems cool, but there are like pits that people can fall into. Yeah, and This guy pokes his head over the side, and Warren aims his gun up at this shadow and shoots, and I thought, yeah, shit, he killed somebody else.

I 

Craig: didn’t, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t really care either, but then he goes stumbling out, and I feel like he’s greeted by the police, and everybody else I feel like is just standing around, watching, and he just keeps, like, he keeps saying, he kept coming, he just kept coming. kept coming, I cut his hand off, and the police tell him, and we get to see, that no, uh, the guy whose hand he cut off was just that same haunt worker who had suspected him of causing mischief and had just been trying to follow him around to get him out of there.

Yeah. And the guy that he shot… Was the sheriff yeah, 

Todd: and 

Craig: then we see we literally no God literally see that the psychopath Has just been in a field picking flowers picking day the 

Todd: whole time daisies. That’s important No, it’s just it’s just stupid, right Picking daisies. How more cliche can you get? And like, when, 

Craig: when the police find him, like, he’s this big hulking guy, and he’s just, like, kneeling in a field of flowers, picking flowers, and the poli like, a cop walks up to him, and he just turns and looks up and like, offers him a bouquet, a bouquet.

Oh 

Todd: god. Again, I think they’re trying to be funny. I guess, 

Craig: whatever. And then Warren just keeps, he just keeps re he kept coming, he just kept coming, he just keeps repeating it, and he gets arrested and put in the back. of a cop car, and Barb has hooked up with the 50 year old teenager. And then, everybody goes back to partying.

To partying! And the woman who’s selling the House of Horrors t shirts starts spray painting at the top of them. I survived. And there’s, like, a huge surge. Like, everybody has to get their hands on one of these t shirts. 

Todd: Uh huh. That was hilarious. See what I mean? I think the movie is trying to be a little meta, a little subversive, you know, it’s trying to be funny.

Well, it failed. Yeah, it failed because it’s just not well made. There are aspects of it, look, it takes some talent to be able to light a set that you’re shooting on film. You know, and to make it halfway decent, because we’ve seen movies that are not, you know, that are dark and hard. And yeah, I think there are some moments in here where the cinematography is quite good.

There’s some crane shots. They’re trying to do some things, but just overall, the movie just doesn’t work. It’s a slog. It’s painful. Yes. It just is amateur hour all the way through. And even though it’s got some good ideas and there’s a twist at the end, that’s kind of fun and clever. My God, like. It’s just, objectively, not a great movie.

Craig: The last shot is Warren sitting in the back of the police car, crazy eyed, and you hear a ghostly voice go, Warren. I don’t know. I have no idea. But you’re right. Like, the only credit that I’ll give it is that Some of the interior, the Haunted House interior set pieces were fun. I love a Haunted House attraction.

Love it. Yeah. And so you’re gonna get me with that. Fine. But the movie is awful. I do not recommend it. I did not enjoy watching it. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would enjoy watching it. I don’t even think it would be fun to get drunk and watch with friends. I still think it would be boring. I think it would to a 

Todd: point.

I 

Craig: think that you would just, you would end up, I mean, you might have a good time, but you would just end up ignoring the movie. The only context, like, if you were literally hosting a Halloween event, and you had a bunch of TVs around just playing horror movies, that would be fine, cause nobody’s gonna be paying attention to it, they’re just gonna catch some glimpses of the haunted house imagery, and the carnival, and that’s fun, that’s festive, that’s seasonal, great, but that’s it.

That’s it. I just can’t. I just can’t with this. I want to, I always try, I always really, really try to find something positive to say and I just, this 

Todd: one. You slipped a few positive things in there, you might not remember. I think about 40 minutes into this movie, it would be fun to make fun of and goof around with your friends, not by yourself.

But, after, once Warren’s inside the haunted house and he’s by himself, it gets really boring. Scene after scene of nothing happening. Which, in retrospect, is the point of the movie. Right. Right? 

Craig: Nothing was happening. It was all in his head. Right. 

Todd: But a better made movie would be more suspenseful with this stuff.

Craig: Well, we’ve seen, I’ve seen movies like that before too. There was a movie that took place in, it’s not the one that we did, that took place in the Paris catacombs. There’s another movie that takes place in the Paris catacombs and Pink, the singer, is in it. Oh. And she lives in Paris and her sister comes to visit and they go to a rave in the Paris…

But then, the police come and raid it or something like that, and they, Pink and her friends and her sister all get kind of lost together in the catacombs, and then a killer starts picking them off one by one, and the final girl is the sister. Alright, spoilers, if you haven’t seen this movie and you want to, it turns out that all along, Pink and her friends were just f ing with her sister, but the sister didn’t know that, so she killed them all.

Oh god! And then, and then the last, the last one, I think the last one to go is Pink, and she’s like, you’re such a f ing loser, we were just messing with you, and then the sister kills her too. 

Todd: That’s what you get. 

Craig: So I’ve seen, I’ve seen movies like this before where somebody is happening. So they react violently and it turns out they were wrong.

I’ve seen those types of movies before. It can be clever. It can be a clever, surprising twist. And I guess in this movie, you figured it out before I did. I didn’t figure it out. I mean, I, I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t know that it was all in his head until they showed that. Hulking man picking flowers in the field, and then I rolled my eyes like, oh jeez.

So the twist is, the twist is fine. Again, I feel like you’ve already said it all. I’ll say it again. It just, it’s not executed well. 

Todd: I, you know, this movie was plucked out of absolute obscurity. Like I said earlier, it was shown once. Probably at the premiere where the whole, everybody was gathered and family and everybody was involved in Austin making this movie.

It was obviously this, yeah, it’s obviously this labor of love and this fun thing that I’m sure everybody was gaga over just because this 19 year old kid and all these people participated in it. And I get that. It’s nice. I do too. One of the actors said it supposedly did like a, like a little circuit in Asia.

Or in Eastern Europe, but I don’t buy that. I at least don’t see much evidence for it. This movie just literally just kind of sat on a shelf and was forgotten. And somehow, somewhere, Turner Classic Movies. Discovered it and picked it up and showed it and it got released by one of these One of these labels that like vinegar syndrome find these very obscure movies that would otherwise be lost to time Yeah, rescue them give them a proper DVD release and you can You can hear a director’s commentary on that, as well as the director’s short film, Mr.

Pumpkin, which I really, really looked for and couldn’t find, that came before this, about a kid who imagines that his pumpkin has come to life on Halloween. I thought that could be cute. But yeah, it would be on the DVD, and I obviously don’t have access to that and couldn’t find it anywhere online. So I get, uh, I get that.

And for that, I thought it was nice. Like I said, I thought There’s Nothing Out There was a similar type of story, but way better executed, maybe because that guy’s parents were actually, like, editors in the film industry. I do like 

Craig: that there are… People, corporations, entities out there who do try to, you know, kind of rescue these more obscure films, uh, you know, because I’m sure that this movie is important and special to somebody and, and for it to completely Fade into obscurity.

I don’t I don’t wish 

Todd: that on anybody. No, and I’m bitter. You know, I’m bitter because why doesn’t somebody pluck out that that movie that I made in college and decided it was worth it? Putting it on streaming services and shit, you know? Come on, vinegar syndrome, get, uh, Dumping Jenny out there to

the world for the weekend. Hilarious. Aside from the fact that it’s a nice, interesting bit of ephemera that meant something to somebody, it’s, it’s not gonna win any awards. No. 

Craig: This is not gonna be one of those movies where you’re like, Oh my god, how have I not seen this? It’s so great. It’s a, it’s a camp classic.

Nope. It’s not. 

Todd: Yeah, apparently, it’s the reason why Scream got changed from its original title of Scary Movie to Scream, because the filmmakers here wrote to Wes Craven and begged him not to name his movie Scary Movie, and he acquiesced. Interesting. And it is Halloween. Oh, yeah. Happy Halloween, everybody.

You’re gonna go out to haunts like this, out in barns or in warehouses or things like that. I hope you are. This is exactly like that. You’re gonna hang around with douchey people just like these people do, waiting in line. You’re gonna have a lot of fun like these guys were. Before, you know, hands got cut off and sheriff’s got blasted in the face, you know?

And so, uh, it does have that spirit of it. Totally. I mean, this is something that I would at least throw up as a great example of what a, you know, an American style Halloween night out would be like. Absolutely. For that it’s, it’s entirely appropriate that we do a movie like this. On this day, and I do want to thank our patrons for bringing this to our attention.

It’s certainly, our patrons certainly bring us the more interesting films that we otherwise would not have chosen ourselves. Right, 

Craig: and we’ve been doing this for so long now that we need that help. We do. We need you to kind of throw new things our way because… We’ve done everything. Just kidding. No, we haven’t.

We’ve got a lot more to 

Todd: do. We sure do. And another year coming up real soon. Thank you so much, patrons, for recommending this movie to us, and we hope that everybody out there has a very, very happy and safe Halloween, no matter how you celebrate it or where you are. If you would like to join our Patreon community, go to patreon.com/ChainsawPodcast. We also have a new domain name for our website that’s a little easier to remember, just in case you have to do the outro again, Craig. ChainsawHorror.com. But if you follow our old website at 2guys.red40.com, you can also get there as well. Go there, check out our whole back catalog, leave us a message there, or on our Facebook page or Instagram, and uh, let us know what you thought of this movie and what movies we should do in the future.

Share this podcast with someone you love this Halloween season. And until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig. Happy Halloween from Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We put it to our Patrons to choose the last two movies of the month. We’re happy to announce that the first of those films is this Mexican flick from the 80’s that is almost like two movies in one: It begins life as a standard slasher, and wraps up as a Thriller-inspired kid’s flick.

It’s not perfect, and it’s certainly derivative, but Cementerio del Terror hits the mark when it comes to pure Halloween-style joy. Thanks once again to the collective wisdom of our loyal Patrons!

Cemetery of Terror (1985)

Episode 365, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we are, what, are we four, I think, into Halloween right now? I don’t know. It’s going 

Craig: too quickly. There’s only one more to 

Todd: go. It is, man. I’m That’s a bummer. Let’s make Halloween last all Kind of does last all year for us, doesn’t it?

We do. Let’s be honest. You know, this month of being very special for us, uh, we actually had a more difficult time than usual trying to pick Halloween things. I think because nothing in particular really jumps out at us anymore, right, when it comes to ha We’ve, we’ve done the, the classic Halloween type horror movies, the ones that we really want to do.

Right. And now, uh, I don’t know if you want to say we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. There’s always new stuff coming out. But, uh, yeah, we’re a little more likely to give that choice over to our patrons. And that’s exactly what we did for these last two weeks. We, uh, put about five or so movies to our patrons that we were thinking about doing, some that they have suggested, some that have long been suggested on our On our show, and uh, asked what they wanted.

And the first to come out of that is 1985’s Cemetery of Terror. Definitely not something I would have picked, uh, right off the bat. So, kudos to them for giving us a very interesting movie. This is a film, uh, directed by a guy named Ruben Galindo Jr. His first movie, I think he was fresh out of film school at USC when he put this together.

He was still 

Craig: in school. Oh, is that right? His dad, he was, yeah, he was still in school. His dad called him, um, I think from Mexico and said he had to come home and start making his first picture. What? Like . Well, maybe his dad is like a producer or something. Yeah, 

Todd: his dad was in the business. Definitely. Yeah, 

Craig: so, well, I noticed his name, the name Galindo, I think there, I think it’s produced by a Galindo too.

So maybe that was his dad. I’m not sure. Yeah, I just read that anecdote that he got like called away from college to come make this make this damn 

Todd: make him a movie already 

Craig: Well, if he was 23 and he was still in school, okay, it’s 

Todd: about time come on, yeah, what are you doing it don’t waste your life Well, his dad, um, I believe, uh, was a director and writer known for quite a few Mexican movies.

I mean, I, he’s directed like almost 50 movies going all the way back to like the 70s, early 70s, including one called Santo versus the killer from another world, which I feel like I have seen. It’s one of those, um. Luchadores kind of movies that are really really popular in Mexico that I have only barely dipped my toes into and I’m always kind of bookmarked that like this is something I need to come back to and check out but um, yeah, uh, yeah, you’re right.

He got called back and he shot this on location in Brownsville, Texas. Have you ever been to Brownsville, Texas? 

Craig: I’ve never been to Texas. I don’t have any interest in going to Texas. Sorry, Texans! 

Todd: I lived in Texas for years as a kid, um, and I had relatives who lived in Texas as well, a couple of them still there, and my grandparents even, who were…

Born and raised in Illinois and barely ever left the DeKalb, Illinois area. Nonetheless, found themselves in Brownsville, Texas, when I was, I don’t know, ten? Maybe nine or ten years old. And I believe at that time we were living in Del Rio. Del Rio’s a border town. In fact, it’s been in the news the last couple years because of, you know, a lot of stuff’s been happening around, along the border.

And Del Rio got a little notorious for taking some fairly extreme measures with, um… Some of the people crossing over and I think I think it was when we were living in Del Rio that We went down and took a trip to visit my grandparents in Brownsville, Texas It is about as south in the US as you can get I’m not sure maybe the tip of Florida is a little further south, but this is the very very tip It’s not actually known as a very safe place.

In fact, but I had a wonderful time there as a kid We went to the beach right there on the Gulf and picked up seashells and stuff Sand dollars and things I still have anyway. Uh, yeah. So Brownsville, Texas, this was shot down there and, uh, it’s all in Spanish. Was there even, I know you’re a big, bigger fan of, of watching the dubbed version, did you manage to find these days?

Dubbed version? 

Craig: No, I, uh, I checked shutter and they didn’t have one available, which is fine. But it’s like, another thing is it’s hard to watch these movies. Because, I’m constantly looking away from the screen to take notes. And you can’t really do that because you miss stuff. So, I found myself pausing and rewinding and pausing and rewinding.

Which was fine. Uh… But, you know, that’s what I’m saying. It’s not, I’m not illiterate. It’s not that I don’t like to read. It’s just, I’m trying to do several things at the same time. Anyway. It is inconvenient. Yeah, so it was in Spanish. And it was fun. You know, I used to speak Spanish. I was relatively fluent in Spanish in, like, college.

Mm hmm. Because… I was, you know, studying it all the time, went to Mexico just, you know, for like a spring break, but being immersed in the language, like I totally got by fine. It’s gone. It’s totally gone. Mine too. I don’t know anything. And I want it back. I get really, I get really excited when I like recognize a word.

I know what that means! Oh 

Todd: boy. This whole movie I was convincing myself I really understood the Spanish and I probably could have listened to it without, but I’m not fooling anyone. I understood 

Craig: parts of it and I feel like I could have watched it without the subtitles and that it would have been fine.

Like, it’s not like the dialogue 

Todd: is important. No, it’s not. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on. It might even be fun to give this the, uh, What was that old show? Was it called Mad Movies or something? Where they used to redub movies in a funny way? I feel like this movie is ripe for that Because the dialogue itself is pretty hilarious at times It’s, you know, I’d say my overall impressions of this movie is And I think I texted you this The first 40 minutes, it’s an hour and a half The first half of this movie is kind of a slog And I probably would have turned it off.

This is the kind of movie I might have had going in the background and given it a bit of a chance, but generally speaking, it’s college kids coming together in an old house and it just takes forever to kind of get to the point. But boy, when it gets to the point, it gets interesting. And then I would say the last 30 minutes are just batshit crazy.

It’s at least 

Craig: Two movies. 

Todd: Yes! I feel like it, right? 

Craig: There are two movies happening here. They just both have the same villain and are set in the same place, but they are completely separate stories and completely separate movies. Different characters. It’s weird. Like, it obviously draws. inspiration from lots of places.

Like there’s totally a Halloween thing going on where it’s basically a psycho escapes and there’s a doctor who knows how evil he is and knows that even though everybody thinks he’s dead, the body must be destroyed because he’s not really a man, he’s just evil. There’s that. And then. Teenagers for that guy to slaughter.

That’s one movie. That’s Halloween. But then, the second half of the movie is a children’s movie. Like I’m trying to wrap my head around it. Because literally, it becomes a children’s movie. It’s funny to me that you say it’s a slog to get through. Because, I mean, it kind of is. It introduces, it introduces, a thousand characters.

There are so many characters in this movie. It introduces a thousand people. There are, the main ones are these six 

Todd: med students? I guess? I’m not sure, really. They’re just college kids. I think they’re 

Craig: med students. College kids, something. Okay, so, they’re coupled off. They’re characters. There’s nothing unique or individual about any one of them.

They’re just a bunch. Uh, I don’t want to say assholes because, you know, they’re just normal kids trying to have a good time or whatever, but there’s Jorge and Olivia, Oscar and Mariana, Pedro and Lina. I don’t have anything to say about them except that they’re just kind of like horny kids, or the guys are horny, and they…

Lie to these girls that they’re interested in and tell them that they’re going to take them to this like, exclusive party. What was the word that they, a jet set party? A jet set 

Todd: party, yeah, I was like, They 

Craig: are so, these girls, like, one girl walks into the other girls and is like, Hey ladies, I’m going to a jet set party tonight.

Like, ah, like, hilarious. That was Olivia, she was my favorite, she had curly red hair, she was funny. 

Todd: I did appreciate we had, like, a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette. That kept them together. Thank God, 

Craig: because there would have been no other way to tell them apart. Exactly. The boys are, one of them has a beard.

The other two are identical twins. I don’t know. Right. Oh, God. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Because, so they trick these girls into coming to this, like, they think it’s going to be fun. It’s Halloween. Yay. And they think it’s going to be fun to just, like, hang out. At this old, abandoned house. And like, obviously, the boys…

Are trying to get it in, but the girls are pissed that they got lied to about the jet set party. Yeah. So they’re all mad, and so one of them has a genius idea. They’re mad at us, and they’re scared, because something… What happened that scared them? Well… Oh, they found that weird book! Yeah, 

Todd: the, um, I think it’s, uh…

The Necronomicon. Oh, Jorge, I don’t remember. One of those guys. The neck scarf guy is Jorge, that’s how I have him down. Yeah, 

Craig: I had that down too! I don’t remember. Yeah, Jorge is neckerchief. I have that in my notes too. It’s 

Todd: this big house. It, you know, it actually got me, gave me Spooky’s vibes. You know, when they all 

Craig: pulled up.

Yeah, very much. 

Todd: Right? Very much. The house is just filled with cobwebs and it’s huge. And he goes up to the attic and he finds a… A book that’s sitting there on a stand, very pres Presentational, in the attic. And he starts flipping through it, he brings it down, he starts reading from it and it’s It’s sort of incantations or something, I don’t know, you know, it’s just scary.

Oh my god, it’s like, 

Craig: it’s so 80s, right, it’s so scary movie like, Ooh, look at this old book with something written on the cover in blood. Yeah. Let’s read it aloud. 

Todd: Let’s read it aloud. Perform a ceremony for fun because that’ll be interesting. Like you said, the girls are not having fun so their idea is to scare them more.

Uh, so they’ll fall into their 

Craig: arms. So they tell the girls that they’re going to steal a body from the morgue. I think they must be medical students. They’re going to steal a body from the morgue and they’re going to call on Satan to bring this body back to life. Good idea. That’s, that’s a great, that sounds like a great idea.

So they do. They go to the morgue, they steal a body, they bring it back, they chant Latin and Satan y verses over it. In the cemetery. In the cemetery. Of terror. And it moves, it moves its fingers and one of them sees it and they’re like, Ah, you’re crazy. And then it starts raining. So they’re like, never mind.

And they just go inside and just leave the body out there. And my, my favorite part of the movie, I think, is that they go back in the house and I have in my notes. Holy shit. It worked! Because these girls are down to f k now. Like, they are so f king horny. 

Todd: Maybe it

was the fire, and then this other couple’s in another room, and this other couple’s upstairs, and they’re all just like, there’s no nudity though, in this, um, in this movie. It doesn’t really get quite as… Lots of awkward kissing. What 

Craig: was it? Did you notice the… That one couple… Kissed with no tongue for like a minute, and it was really weird.

It was just like a million smooches

Super weird, but yeah, okay, so one couple’s out on the porch and The girl makes the guy go in to get her a drink and we see POV shot Lumbering towards her and then it cuts back to the boyfriend and he comes back outside and she’s gone And he walks five steps into the yard and finds her body with its throat torn out and he turns around this part was so weird to me because it’s like The killer is standing right in front of him, but it’s like he can’t see us And the killer just keeps reaching out and swiping I also don’t understand this like every time he like claws at somebody it leaves huge Claw marks.

Yeah, wherever he touched. I don’t know what this guy is supposed to be, but he scratches both sides of this guy’s face and every time it happens, the guy’s face moves like he got slapped, but then he looks back right in front of him like he’s confused, like Like What’s happening to me? It’s really 

Todd: weird.

Almost a, more of a curious look than a look of terror on his face. But where is this guy? He doesn’t look scared at all. He doesn’t look scared. And then again, like you said, this killer has got to be right in front of him, but he’s staring right in front of him and like looking left and right, like what?

Oh no, not again. He touches his face like he doesn’t even know and sees blood on his fingers. Then he’s mildly alarmed. But by this point. The killer guts him. Yeah. I thought the makeup effects were surprisingly 

Craig: good. I don’t know about in this part. Like, those scratches on their face looked good if it was on stage.

But on camera, like, they clearly, they obviously weren’t cut. Like, it was just, it didn’t even look, it didn’t even look like they had used, you know, like wax or anything. To make it look like a cut they just put makeup on top. Yeah But but 

Todd: the like one they’re gutted like the aftermath of uh, like the girl’s throat being ripped, you know ripped out and right Yeah, oh that was all that stuff.

Yeah hanging. It’s just pretty cool So like it gives you the impression of brutality, but it’s not a savini these are like Savini style effects where you actually see the monster like tearing into their flesh or, you know, see the cuts happening or whatnot. It’s, it’s always right after it happened. You just kind of see the aftermath, but, but yeah, I mean, his guts are hanging out and bloody and I don’t know, I thought it was kind of impressive.

Craig: I mean, it was fine. I fairly standard before I watched the movie. I read just like a A viewer review or whatever, and it said, um, The, the, the kills aren’t unique enough, they’re all the same. And I kind of agree. Now we can go through them all if you want to, I don’t mind doing that at all. But what was interesting to me was it took 40 minutes.

Yeah, maybe even more like 42, 43 minutes to get to the kills and then they all happen in 45 seconds. Yes, one 

Todd: right after the other. It’s just, it’s the same like, oh, I wonder where Oscar is and they’ll like go outside. And then it 

Craig: turns into another movie and nobody else dies. Yeah, the whole rest of the movie.

It’s crazy, like, he picks off these kids one by one, and like, it was fun following, you know, his POV, and knowing that he was right behind these kids, and they had no idea what was going on, like, it was fun, but it felt like they tried to pack that The whole third act of that movie into less than five minutes.

Yeah. 

Todd: It’s jarring in that way. And it leaves you wondering, like, what the hell’s gonna happen now? And then, we get the kids. Ha ha! Who we had been introduced to early. They were, all of this has been interspersed with some scenes. Yeah. Um, one of the scenes is between the doctor, as you mentioned. Uh, Dr.

Cardon, I think. Um, who actually, I, I, is a very well known Mexican actor. He’s got almost 200 credits. He had actually done some, uh, I think we’ve seen him before. I think we saw him in the, the Fulci movie, City of the Living Dead. He did some horror films in Italy, some horror movies in Mexico, quite a few. I think he’s still working.

And so, uh, he might be the most famous in Mexico, you know, of the people in this movie. And yeah, it’s him in this. There’s this captain who are, you know, it’s your typical, he’s, like you said, he’s trying to convince the captain that this body needs to be cremated. And he’s the captain’s like, what are you crazy?

He’s going to get a normal burial. No, no, it needs to be cremated. And there’s just all of this kind of awkward and stilted tension there. I don’t remember what, what instigates them to go out and actually look. Oh, it’s the MORE gets broken into. 

Craig: No, no. Well, I think that Dr. Cardin, like, the judge wouldn’t grant the rights to have him cremated or something.

So I think Dr. Cardin Falsified. I don’t know. He was I think he was falsifying documents. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was doing. But I think that he was falsifying documents, and he took them to the captain and was like, See here, now we can cremate him. And it just so happens that they arrive at the morgue while Those boys are in the process of Taking out that very body.

Stealing that body. That’s the body they steal, the body of that satanic killer that this guy’s all worried about. But they just miss him. Like, they just miss 

Todd: him. It’s quite a coincidence. And he spends most of the rest of the movie sitting in a car, looking wildly left and right. Driving around looking for it.

Driving. I don’t know how he thinks he’s gonna find, he’s gonna find this guy just by driving around in a car. But that’s his strategy. 

Craig: I don’t know. And the cop, at first, the cop’s like, Don’t worry about it, it’ll turn up. 

Todd: This is the most laid back police captain I’ve ever seen in my life. 

Craig: He doesn’t even, like, get upset.

Like, Cardin steals his car. Like, the cop gets out of the car to call the precinct or something. Or call his wife. Yeah, he calls his wife because he got on the police radio, Uh, sir, your wife called, she wants you to call her right away. Because their kids are in this little group of kids that, This movie is going to focus on from now on, but while he’s on the phone, the other guy Carden steals his car and he’s like, Oh, he puts another quarter in the pay phone and he’s like, send somebody to pick me up.

Hurry up.

Todd: It’s so funny. 

Craig: It’s really not like it’s not as fun as I’m making it sound. I mean, there are things that I like about it. It’s charming. I actually, this children’s movie that we’re now watching is cute. I like these kids a lot. Like, usually in movies, well, just in life in general, kids are like fucking annoying.

But, um, especially in horror movies, I don’t deal with little children. That’s a whole different story. Trust me, teenagers have their moments too, but… Anyway, usually kids… And these movies can be really, really annoying. Like, frickin Bob from that horrible other, was that a cemetery movie too? 

Todd: Yeah, House by 

Craig: the Cemetery.

So, Bob. These are like, you don’t get to know them as well, but they’re like monster squad kids. Like, they seem like nice, fun, cool kids that I would have loved to have been friends with when I was that age. Especially Tony, who’s like the older one and he’s handsome and he’s cool. Like, oh man, I would have wanted to be Tony’s friend so bad.

And so it’s, it’s fun. It’s fun to follow them around. It is, 

Todd: and we were introduced to them fairly early on in the movie. Like you said, it introduces all these characters kind of all at once before we focus on the slashings at the house. But these kids are just getting ready for Halloween, and they’re, they’re carrying actual jack o lanterns, which I thought was awesome.

Craig: Right, and like, I also thought it was cool. I read that at the time, Halloween in Mexico… Was mostly for kids. I mean, I guess that’s kind of true of the States too. Yeah. Um, but just like in the States now in Mexico, it’s kind of celebrated by all ages. But at the time, it was really kind of like for little kids.

And so I like seeing this little kid stuff. Like they put on masks and they talk about going out trick or treating and they talk about like pranking their neighbors and yes, they are like carrying around jack o lanterns like, um, Lanterns, which is really cool, but they’re not just like they’re not the huge Pumpkins that we see they’re like smaller 

Todd: gourds and something you could actually carry basically Yeah, 

Craig: like like and and maybe not a pumpkin maybe like a squash or something Yeah, but they look really cool and just to see those kids And they don’t, they’re not really in costumes, I think one kid has a mask that he wears for a while, but just to see them kind of parading around at night, holding those lanterns, that was really nostalgic for me, which is one of the selling points, because I’m not going to rave, at the end of this episode, I’m not going to rave about this movie, but there were things about it.

That I appreciated. 

Todd: Yeah, it just gave the feel of like, my Halloween night. You think you’re gonna go off on a little adventure, you know, and that’s kind of what these kids are doing. Tony’s idea as the leader is to start out at the cemetery, cause it’s gonna be really, really spooky. And so they go into the cemetery, uh, to the gate.

Uh, they 

Craig: hitchhike. To the cemetery. That’s right. They get in some rando’s 

Todd: van. Oh, you wouldn’t want to hitchhike in Brownsville now. I don’t even think in 85 you would have wanted to hitchhike in Brownsville, but 

Craig: yeah. Uh, the director was driving the van, just in 

Todd: case you were curious. Oh, I didn’t know that.

Yeah, so he, uh, they go to the cemetery and there’s this kind of iron gates there, and they walk in, and as they walk in, the gates close behind them. And then we don’t see them for a while. Like you said, like the kids, the older kids are at this house and getting murdered. Until, uh, the young kids, finally we catch back up with them.

And, at this point, when I realized, Wait a second, the next half of this movie is gonna be about these kids? I know! I was… And then they show up at that house and I’m like, Oh, this could be 

Craig: interesting. It just, it aligns that all of the 20 somethings die and then the kids show up at the cemetery and it’s a great cemetery.

Out of nowhere, a crypt, like, explodes? 

Todd: Yeah! A grave opens, and flames shoot out of it. Which scares them, which it should. And they run for a while. So 

Craig: they, right, so they run for help, and the house that they come to… is the murder house. 

Todd: It’s the house by the cemetery. How 

Craig: can I really? I really liked this part too.

I liked the way that this part was shot when they came in the house. It was shot with the camera pulled way far back, like in a different room, like it was shooting through the window. Like a big doorway, and in the foreground for us, we see one of those twenty something guys dead and hung up on the wall.

We saw that happen to him. 

Todd: Mm hmm. Very Michael Myers style. 

Craig: Right. We see it in the foreground, and in the background, we see the kids come in, and they’re looking around, but they can’t see it because, like, the doorway’s in the way. And then I think, oh, they’re gonna come into the door and they’re gonna see it.

But nope, they just look around the other way, because that’s where the stairs are, and they start creeping up the stairs. I just really liked the way that that was shot. And, and the kids are all huddled together like they’re the Goonies. Like, that was great. 

Todd: Yeah, this was not a, hey, let’s split up and explore the house situation.

They were smart, and they all went up together like the 

Craig: Goonies. They remain smart. That’s what’s fun about the movie, like, because eventually they get upstairs and they find bodies, like, they didn’t see that first one immediately, they, they see it later, but they find bodies up there, and then, that psycho, what’s his name, Devlin, Devlin the psycho, he 

Todd: comes in, comes up the stairs, and he 

Craig: starts, which one is it, it’s Jason, that just like, you can run,

That’s kind of this guy. Like he’s not really chasing them. He’s more following 

Todd: them, right? Yet he’s always there right 

Craig: behind, like he’s, he’s trying to get to them, but he’s pretty slow and, uh, not cause he’s like Frankenstein’s monster or anything. He just doesn’t seem to be any particular hurry. Like I can get, I’ll get them when I get them.

I mean, we find out that he has. telekinesis. At one point he pulls, much later, he pulls a girl towards him using his mind. 

Todd: That’s the way one of the guys in this room gets, gets killed. Cause he picks an axe up off the, like, a decoration on the wall. And he’s 

Craig: running after him. One of the twenty 

something 

Todd: guys, right?

Yeah, one of the twenty somethings. And, uh, cabinets behind him start banging, and the wind is blowing, and suddenly the axe gets a mind of its own, and, uh, spins around, and he’s fighting it, and eventually, kind of, basically axes himself, I guess, but the axe is possessed. I 

Craig: liked that. That was cool. I liked the way that it was shot.

Because usually… I don’t know if it was the angles or what we couldn’t see, but usually when you see somebody trying to pretend like they’re struggling with something, like an invisible force, it doesn’t look convincing. And this was really, really brief, and I don’t even know if you really saw like, his hands on the thing, like, struggling with it, I can’t remember, but I thought he did a good job.

I thought, whether it was the acting or the way it was shot. I don’t know. I liked it. I thought that it was a clever kill where it was kind of the only clever one. I mean, yeah, lots of them were satisfying. I also liked the one where two of the 20 somethings are getting it on and one of the boy has to go pee.

And so he goes downstairs and goes outside to pee because apparently the Bathroom is full of bats. And she’s up in the window like teasing him. And he turns around and he sees the killer behind her and screams, you know, look out or something. And she turns around and just gets mauled and killed. Like, I liked that.

And I liked seeing the initial part of the attack basically from the boyfriend’s Perspective from a distance and you know framed in light. It was cool. There’s some cool stuff going on 

Todd: here Yeah, it’s actually pretty well shot that for this movie. I I would say Almost entirely well shot as far as the cinematography goes and like I said, the makeup effects are pretty serviceable Like you said the it’s a little surprising at times with the axe in particular that scene also jumped out at me When the guy gets uh impaled on the wall, that was a little baffling Because he kind of gets lifted up by the neck and then just sort of placed on the wall where 

Craig: apparently yeah You I have no idea what he was impaled.

Todd: Yeah, but it happens super fast because he just lifted up and it looks like he’s lifted Up placed on a wall and now he’s dead Immediately dead 

Craig: Maybe he broke his neck. He did pick him up by the neck. So maybe his neck was broken I don’t know but anyway, so the kids Like, this guy is, like, menacing them, and they have to, like, Tony is, you know, the hero, and he, like, pulls the axe out of that dead guy, out of his head.

Yeah. What I like about this is, they, they hide for a little bit, um, but, These kids help each other and don’t leave one another behind. Like, they’re all in it together. Like, nobody’s getting left behind. If one of them’s going down, they’re all going down fighting. Because, and that’s, I don’t know, that’s kind of rare.

I feel like you don’t see that very often. So I like that, it was cool. And they’re innovative and they get away and they run outside. And they’re in the cemetery. 

Todd: And it becomes… Thriller..

Destiny Yes!! It’s so, so true! 

Craig: Literally Thriller, now… I read, on a pretty reputable source, I think that this movie was literally inspired by Thriller. Oh yeah. One of the kids is wearing a Michael Jackson jacket. Yes! Like, with Michael Jackson’s face airbrushed on the back. Uh huh. And, one of the makeup artists who worked on Thriller is a makeup artist on this.

Todd: Oh, no way! That 

Craig: makes sense. Thriller literally happens. Yes. Without the song and dance. But. The rest of it. You still get 

Todd: Michael Jackson in there, too. 

Craig: Michael Jackson is in there. It is Looney Tunes. No, Michael Jackson’s not in there. I mean, his face 

Todd: is. Yeah, it’s close. 

Craig: But it’s great. I mean, who doesn’t love Thriller, right?

It’s the Thriller set. Like, it’s that old, decrepit, uh, cemetery with the, with the mist coming out of the graves and the really old, crooked, rickety tombstones and crosses and stuff. I love it. It’s the set of Thriller. I love Thriller. It’s great. You said before that this reminded you of Spooky’s, another movie that was giving, it was giving me…

And it makes perfect sense because this movie, too, seemed to be inspired by Thriller, was the Midnight Hour. Oh, yeah. This gave me some Midnight Hour vibes. 

Todd: That’s true. Especially with a movie within a movie kind of situation where we got multiple stories going on here. I mean, all that was happening around the same time, 84, 85, when this movie came out.

Yeah, right. 

Craig: Right. And so, okay, so it’s Thriller. Like, and again, like, these kids, they, what, they run around with these zombies for… 

Todd: For a while. Five minutes? Yeah, it’s a long time. Then, the impression that you’re supposed to get is the cemetery’s so huge and confusing that they can’t even find their way out.

Craig: Well, and, like, one of them will fall, and then one of them will fall in a hole, 

Todd: and then… Zombies are coming out of the wall of the muddy walls of the open grave, and, you know, reaching out. 

Craig: Yeah, and one of them will get grabbed, and the rest of them will stop and run back and fight the zombie and get their friend and run again, and, like, these things just…

Keep happening. But again, I was just so impressed that they were in it together. I want to believe that that would be true, especially with kids. Cause kids are so much more pure and 

Todd: empathetic. You just said they were all assholes. And now you’re saying they’re pure. 

Craig: I didn’t say they were assholes. I said they were annoying.

Annoying. I don’t know. Maybe I, maybe I said they’re assholes. No, you didn’t. It sounds like, 

Todd: it sounds like something I would 

Craig: say. I like the kids that I’m related to. I like your kid. 

Todd: Oh, sometimes I don’t like my kid, you know? It depends on the day. 

Craig: I haven’t, I haven’t seen him since he could talk. 

Todd: So, I don’t think I have anyway.

That’s when it all starts to go south. That’s when, that’s when all the problems start. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, 

Todd: for sure. Oh, jeez. No, for the record, I love my kid. He’s so much fun to be with. Obviously. 

Craig: Yeah, your, your kid’s awesome. That’s why dogs are the best, like, they just love you and they never learn to talk. It’s 

Todd: amazing.

You know, people are trying to get the, you know, especially with AI now, there’s this potential that maybe we could use AI to learn the language of animals. And I’m like, boy, that is going to open a can of worms. I am not sure we want to be able to talk to these animals. 

Craig: On the one hand, I’m like, no, I don’t want to know what they’re thinking.

But on the other hand, Like, I think they just love me so much. 

Todd: I just want to hear it. 

Craig: That would, I know, it would be really amazing to hear just somebody all the time being like, Oh, I love you, you’re my favorite person. Oh, you’re home, I’m so excited. Ah. Anyway, so these kids, they get chased around a bunch, and then they finally get to the gate.

I didn’t see this coming. Me neither. The gate had slammed supernaturally behind them when they came in the cemetery, which was ominous, I enjoyed it. Um, but then they get to the gate, and it’s locked, and they start rattling it, and the gate grows out of the ground like 12 feet at least. It shoots up 

Todd: really high.

It is awesome. And I’m not exactly sure how they did it. I’m not either. But it looks great. It’s super impressive. It’s almost like out of a Tim Burton movie or something. This gate just like, it’s extended real fast. And I really dug that bit. And again, I also had no idea how they did that. This part with 

Craig: the kids running around in the cemetery is a lot of fun.

Like this part, I would recommend, I would almost recommend just skipping the first half. Just watch, just watch the kid movie. The kid movie is fun. The other one’s okay. Like, and if you like these kind of old movies and you know, it is set at Halloween and that’s fun. But if you’ve seen, um, Hell Knight or any 

Todd: number of 

Craig: them, there are so many movies that are just 

Todd: like this.

It’s very derivative. It 

Craig: really is. Even kind of like. Slumber Party Massacre is basically what’s going on in the first half of the movie, and that’s fine if you like those types of movies, great. I’ve kind of seen enough of them, so I was like, eh, okay, that’s fine. But this was good. I really could get into this, and I honestly think that if I had seen this movie when I was a kid…

Oh, yeah. You would probably have been a favorite, but I might have fast forwarded through the first part, but I think I would have really, really dug this second. 

Todd: It’s not even gory at this point, I think. No, 

Craig: there’s really no violence. The, uh, like the makeup effects are great, but they look like the Thriller zombies and maybe even a little dustier than the Thriller, maybe not even as juicy as the Thriller zombies, so less scary potentially than the Thriller zombies.

Um, but no, there is like the scariest stuff, and it is scary because it’s kids, is like the zombies will catch them sometimes, or, or they’re right next to them. The doctor shows up, his drive around paid off, cause… He ends up 

Todd: gate crashing, right? Yeah. He rams his car through, thank god, you know, random driving around happens to drive by right when he sees the kids at the gate rattling it.

You know, what they should have done once he crashed the gate was just… Fricking leave. Leave the cemetery. Go out through the gate . Yeah. Come, go out the way you came in. Instead, the doctor shows up and he’s like a martial artist. I love it. He just starts punching zombies in the face, and kicking them. They try to actually, they do try to leave, right?

’cause they get in the car and the car can’t start. I don’t know why he turned off the car, but in any case, the car, I. 

Craig: died. I think it died like from the impact or whatever, because he hit the gate and then he plowed down a bunch of zombies too. So I think we’re supposed to believe that the car died.

Maybe we’re supposed to think that it’s supernatural. I don’t know, 

Todd: but it won’t start. Yeah, they’re like the car is half surrounded, close to being fully surrounded, but then they kind of make it out before it does. And he punches a zombie right in the face as they’re, as the kids are escaping. And so then they’re all running around through the cemetery, punching and kicking zombies and trying to get back.

And they eventually end up back at that house. I love that interspersed with this, we get the parents who were so worried with the captain about the kids. And once again, this captain is so useless. He’s got them all gathered in like his office, uh, the parents of these kids. And I think somebody’s sister and whatnot.

Yeah, and he’s like don’t worry. They’ll show up everything’s fine. Then he gets a phone call and it’s like what? Oh, okay, send them in and he says they found some kids. Let’s see if they’re yours This cop escorts two kids and they’re just looking at the ground they’re like Nope, not ours. Okay, send them back.

Craig: That was really hilarious. It was also funny. Yeah, like, they were all just, I mean, I, what else would they be doing? I don’t know. But they were all just like sitting in his office like crying. Like, oh, I’m so worried. He’s never been away from me for a whole night before. It was funny. But you skipped, you skipped one of my funny moments.

Not one of my favorite parts, but a part that I definitely wanted to mention at one point when they’re in the cemetery before they get to the house, the kids in the doctor, a tree falls on the dock and he’s like, just leave me a tiny little tree and it’s, you’re right. And they’re trying to lift it off and they can’t, you’re like, just go.

They’re like, no, we won’t. And one of the girls turns around and is like, the dead people are getting close and the doctor pulls. One of the biggest crucifixes I’ve ever seen 

Todd: out of his jacket. Which we didn’t know he had. No! And I’m still not sure why he has it. This, it would 

Craig: be a decorative crucifix that you hate, like, big.

Like, I’m talking like a good 16 inches top to bottom and bulky. Yeah. Where did that come from? This is just like a thin… Cross with a little skinny Jesus on it. No, this is a big, bulky, Decorative crucifix that he apparently has been carrying under his jacket the whole time, this whole time. And so she runs, and it’s, it’s magic.

Like, that, I mean they could have stayed there all night. Right? That crucifix. I don’t know why they didn’t. I don’t either, but uh, eventually he, the doctor says something like, Oh, if I only had that book, I could put an end to all of this. Yeah, well the girl says, You’re 

Todd: free. I think she’s kind of free.

You’re free. And he’s like, Nobody will be free until I get that book and put Devlin in his place. And Tony’s 

Craig: like, Wait. Book. Did you say book? I saw a book. . 

Todd: Uh, it’s a little clunky. Yeah, . 

Craig: So he tells them, I don’t even understand, like, I thought he was free, but then he’s like, run, run. Go get it. Burn it. And he kind of 

Todd: hangs back.

Well, he, he’s, I guess he’s supposed to be injured because he picked, he’s got the crucifix now and he’s trying to ward up the zombies. In the meantime, he’s leaned against a giant cross, like a, you know, a grave marker type cross that’s made outta wood. And I guess he’s sort. Man sized. Yeah. And he sort of snaps it as he’s leaning on it, and so now he’s using that to, like, stab through the zombies.

I don’t know why that cross didn’t really work to fend them away, because now he’s got a giant cross. Like, why didn’t he just They weren’t getting that 

Craig: close to him. That’s true. He was just kind of hobbling along. But it’s just so you can get the kids in the house first. And so, you know, they’re still being menaced by zombies.

There are zombies everywhere, but this is so frickin cute, like, they play like hot Like there’s zombies everywhere. So they’re like playing hot potato with the book. Like they’re tossing it back and forth between each other. Adorable, but they’re trying to get it into the fire. But Looney Tunes guy is in there too.

Whatever his name is Dev Devlin, 

Todd: he comes in very menacingly. He’s 

Craig: in there too. And just as one of these cute girls. I loved this girl. They all have names, but I can’t remember what they were. This was Oosy. Oosy, yeah. She was adorable. She reminded me of Max from Stranger Things, but younger. Anyway, she uh, takes the book and she goes to throw it in the fire, but she like, physically can’t because Looney Tunes is controlling her with his mind.

And this is when he… Like, Jedi mind tricks her, like, like, levitate, not levitate, but just like drags her with his mind. He just like, slides 

Todd: across the room towards him, 

Craig: yeah. Yeah. But at the last second, the doctor comes in… With his giant cross. But like, he’s not as injured now as he was before. 

Todd: Because he can fight.

He and Devlin just have a straight out face off, yeah. 

Craig: He’s fighting Devlin, the other kids are fighting zombies. This girl with the book is just standing there like she’s still frozen. In tears. Right. Does something happen? Like, does Carden get the better of the psycho for a second or something? Cause eventually the spell 

Todd: gets broken.

Yeah, I think he just kind of like eventually gets the better of him and he keeps screaming at her, Throw the book in the fire! Throw the book in the fire! And so eventually the spell’s broken, and she runs to the fire, throws the book in, and everything starts bursting into flames. All the bad guys. And the house is bursting into flames, and…

Devlin is bursting into flames. I was just like, this movie is nuts. It was 

Craig: pretty nuts. And then… That’s kinda it? Yeah, the cops Does it cut to the next 

Todd: morning? Yeah, it’s like these movies are, it’s the next morning, but it also seems to have just be the very next thing that happens, because the cops are pulling the kids out of the house, and they got bodies going into a, what do you call it, an ambulance, and there’s a big crowd outside, 

Craig: and The only thing that we missed, I looked at my notes, the only thing that we missed was that once the book is Devlin and Cardin are still fighting and Devlin is using his claws, I guess, to rip Cardin up.

So it looks like Cardin is in kind of bad shape, but we don’t see him die or anything. No, we don’t. I also liked, before it’s the next morning, The captain and the cop that he are with get a call and they’re like, they think they found our kids. Go to the old abandoned house. So they drive up to the old abandoned house.

They drive up to it in the cop car. They both get out. It’s dark. They’re the only ones there. There’s no, you can’t hear or see anything else happening, which I don’t understand because the house is on fire. 

Todd: There’s insanity going on inside. Right. 

Craig: But they run, they both run into the house and the other cop immediately runs back out and runs to the radio.

It’s like, Tell him we found the kids. That was comical to me, like he immediately ran back out. Yeah. And then it’s the next morning, right? That’s right, okay. Yeah, and I mean, that’s it. Like, there’s a closing scene. Crowds have but crowds have gathered, like, and they’re bringing out the bodies and stuff, but you see a POV from upstairs, and I didn’t know what was going 

Todd: on.

It looked like Devlin 

Craig: was back It was his POV, like, we’ve only seen POV shots from him. Correct. Yeah. From his perspective. Although it’s Up to this point. 

Todd: At this point, it’s not exactly POV, it’s a little more over his shoulder, because we can see See he’s carrying a book, and we can see his arms, and the book is still half intact, it’s a bit charred, but uh, he sets it on the stand and starts to flip it open to those, those original pages, and the camera swoops around and up, and it’s not Devlin, it’s the Doctor.

Or 

Craig: is it? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: No, he laughs in Devlin’s voice, like. In his head, I think that I think that Devlin, the suggestion is that Devlin has possessed the doctor, which fine, fine, suitable ending. I like those kind of grim twists in, uh, endings. That’s that’s great. Um, I couldn’t believe for a second I That they would have killed any of those kids.

Um, but I almost feel like that’s why it’s two movies. Like they wanted to have the gore and violence, but they couldn’t do it with the kids, right? So they got it. They had that whole other storyline. They, they did it. They got it out of the way and then they moved on. And let it go. And so it’s, it’s weird.

Like it’s, it’s tonally and structurally really weird. Yeah. And, and as I was sitting watching it, you know, I had, I had worked all day. I had come home. I am going on a trip tomorrow and I’m not packed. Like I was trying to get stuff done. I’m running around. I’m folding laundry while I’m watching this movie.

While I’m watching it, I’m thinking, ugh. It’s fine. Whatever. Like, you know, like I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t doing anything for me necessarily. But okay, I get it. Whatever. That’s fine. Um, but sitting here and talking to you about it and kind of reliving it in my head, there were things that I did like about it.

And I think that had I not been so hurried and had my mind on other things, I think I would have enjoyed it more. But I do stand by what I said that the first part is It’s you’ve seen it before yeah, you’ve seen that movie dozens of times, and that’s okay. I mean we keep watching them 

Todd: This whole podcast is about really how 

Craig: many of those exact movies have we done a million?

So that’s fine if you’re you know if you like that kind of thing fine if you’ve never seen this movie before and you’re curious It’s not awful at all. It’s it’s perfectly fine, but I think where I, I don’t know. This movie apparently, it has kind of a cult following, um, I’m constantly seeing it on lists of, uh, you know, underrated things that you should see.

So I think that this movie has an audience and a fandom, and I would just almost be willing to bet that most of that is because… Of the second half Yeah, and 

Todd: it’s Halloween through and through. It’s thriller. There’s nothing more Halloween than thriller. I mean, you know, there’s zombies bursting out of graves.

Mayhem. The crazy effects. It’s just charming. I found it really charming. There’s a point where the kids are running through there, and they, they hide in a crypt. Crypt, you know, zombies have been bursting out of these crypts, but they swing by one, and they’re like, this would be a good idea to go in here.

And they open the door, and you can tell it’s kind of flimsy. Like, this door looks like it’s made out of plywood, painted to look like stone. It’s a set! You know? Like, 

Craig: it’s obviously 

Todd: a set. It is, but it’s fun. Yeah, 100%. It’s like running through your Halloween decorations and, you know. 

Craig: Or going to a really great, like, haunted graveyard or haunted 

Todd: house, right?

Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed that part of it. I thought, like I said earlier, I just thought a lot of people would not even necessarily give this movie a chance. Even to the point where they get the book and they’re doing the ceremony and the… In the, it’s, it’s like 40 minutes in, I think before that all ends up going down.

Yeah, it’s, and up until there, it’s, it’s not that compelling. There’s like a water skiing scene, you know, it’s trying to kind of, oh my God, I forgot about the water skiing scene. just. For no good reason, on their way to the party, they decide to meet up with one of their friends who waterskis, and he splashes them, and Yeah.

It’s kind of supposed to be silly, but yeah, it’s just, it’s just not very compelling up to that point, and it’s, it’s very derivative, and it’s kind of silly, but uh, after that. point, you know, once the killings start and then the kids come in, it’s, uh, it’s fun. Yeah. I would totally recommend it. By the way, um, we were talking about those kids and you were mentioning Tony.

Eduardo Capetillo, uh, is the name of him and he is acting like crazy right now. 

Craig: Well, and I, I think I saw that he, he produces two maybe, I don’t remember. Yeah, I looked him up because he looked, he looked familiar to me, but I looked at his filmography and I didn’t see anything that I recognized. Yeah, it’s all 

Todd: Spanish TV series, yeah.

I 

Craig: think he just had that cute. Nice kid. Look of the 80s. Like a mix, like a mix of Rudy and Sean from the Monsters. Haha, there you go. Not, not as tough and badass as, uh, as Rudy, but, but still older, but nice. Uh huh. He was like the nice kid who was really really good at baseball in the sandlot. Oh yeah.

Remember that kid? Uh huh. He was like that kid, just nice and handsome. Like, I would have so wanted to be his friend.

Ha Anyway, you know, like as it’s Halloweeny, it’s set at Halloween. There’s Halloween everywhere. Like you said, uh, jack o lanterns, trick or treating, pranks, zombies. So yeah, I, I, I don’t think that I would recommend it to my friends who are not like hardcore horror. Right. But you guys, I would totally recommend it if, if you haven’t seen it, I think you’ll dig it.

Yeah. So, and it would be a fun thing to put on at this time of year. And it’s available 

Todd: on Shudder right now, so you can check it out there. Well thank you again for listening. We have one more Halloween episode. Coming up for you the big one I don’t even know what it’s gonna be because the patrons were waiting for the final votes to come in If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend.

This is the perfect time to do it because it’s Halloween We do some of our best work this time of year Please find us online just by googling two guys in a chainsaw Drop us a note and let us know what you thought and have a conversation with us And if you’re a patron, please get on over there and vote to find which of the last movies we’re going to do this season before we jump into all those Thanksgiving movies, uh, next month.

Ha ha ha. If you’d like to be a part of that, please check out patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and you too can shape the direction of this show. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With two guys and a chainsaw.

For the first time ever in a Halloween season, we head to the theaters to give our take on a contentious movie, The Exorcist: Believer. And we’re delighted to have our returning guest and old friend, Heather, join us to give her take as well.

How does this sequel stand up the original? And how does this first installment bode for the trilogy of Exorcist films that David Gordon Green is bringing into the world? Early reviews have not been kind. Where will the three of US fall on the spectrum? Listen up – you may be surprised….

The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

Episode 364, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And we are joined here today for the, ah, second, third, I don’t remember how many times you’ve been on the show, but every time you come it’s lovely to have you, Heather. Thank you so much for joining us.  

Heather: Hi guys! Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to talk about this movie. 

Todd: You were also the person who, uh, it was actually your brainchild to put together the behind the scenes interview for us that became our premium for our Patreon subscribers that is on the Patreon channel. One of the very first things that our patrons can see to get a little bit of insight into us and the genesis behind the show and what we do behind the scenes.

A little bit about our personalities. And you were the person who came up with the idea and asked us all the questions and, uh, and made that halfway interesting. 

Heather: I was, I was really excited to get to do that with you guys.  

Todd: Thank you so much. And by the way, everyone, if you are interested in hearing that, all you have to do is go to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, and, uh, that’s enough promotion right now, what we are here today to do is to go into our third week of our Halloween extravaganza. Super excited this week to be doing a brand new movie. I don’t think we’ve ever done this for our Halloween extravaganza before. Just days after it’s come out across the world.

The Exorcist Believer. And I believe you guys went to see it together, didn’t you? Yep. Yep. We went yesterday. I had forgotten what it was like to go to the theater, let alone with another person, because there’s so little that comes out in China that I’m actually interested in going out and seeing nowadays, post pandemic with a political situation, everything’s kind of gone to shit.

But, um, Actually, I happened to be traveling in Thailand last week and in Bangkok, I saw three horror movies on the big screen. I think it opened in Thailand a few days before it opened in the States, actually. So I managed to catch it on IMAX. I never thought I would be seeing a movie like The Exorcist on the giant fricking IMAX screen with all that sound, that amazing sound system.

Uh, it was something else. You know, it’s not what I would have thought of as like a giant screen movie. You know, I would think of something like an action movie or whatever that would be a little more appropriate. But, that was our only option at the time, and it, I don’t know, it, it, it was pretty cool seeing it on the big screen, and the sound design alone, um, I think it probably made it more impactful than it would have been for us otherwise, so, uh, it wasn’t a bad call, but I can’t imagine there are too many IMAXs in the states showing them.

The exorcist believer right now. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wouldn’t 

Craig: think so, but I, I, I’m a little bit jealous because when you texted me that you had seen it, one of the things that you said was that there are some really good sound jump scares. Yeah. Uh, I, maybe I’m just old and deaf, but it felt like our sound was kind of low.

And so I didn’t. I think maybe I missed those. So yeah, it’s a bummer. 

Todd: Ours might’ve been punishingly loud because I think even before all the main action happened in the, in the, you know, kind of last, last half of the movie, there were a number of, um, I guess transitions. That were just, like, very jarring, and, uh, there was, like, a sound punctuation that kind of went with it that had us jump just from that alone.

That, anyway, that was the IMAX experience. Maybe it’s just different. You know, I’ll, real quick, I’ll tell ya, I’ve been to Thailand once, like, 20 years ago, so I’m not up on Thai culture. This is my, only my second time ever, ever being there. And, uh, I had been told many times before that the Thais love horror movies and they produce a lot of horror movies and that was never more apparent as when I’m in this movie theater, keep in mind, very, very fancy movie theater, like in a, in the highest end shopping mall in Bangkok, it was gorgeous, it had so many options for screens and seating, they had a theater with beds where you could just like, Yeah, lay down and watch the movie.

No, I don’t like that. 

Craig: Yeah. No, thank 

Todd: you. They had a theater with beds. They had a several different versions of theaters with different sizes of comfy chairs that recline and they had a theater with sofas, double sofas. Even some of their bigger theaters had sofas in the back for a premium price. They had this giant IMAX screen.

They had 4D, I don’t know if you guys have ever seen a 4D movie, but they’re a little more comment over here in Asia, where you fricking sit in the chair and it’s like, they jerk you around and they flash lights at you. And sometimes there’s water and almost like seeing a 3d movie at a theme park, but it’s like Marvel.

It’s pretty nuts. Like they had all these options. I think there were 25 different screens at this, at this place. And the movies on display, I would tell you about half of the available movies were horror movies. Awesome. We saw Saw X. Talk To Me and The Exorcist Believer. They were also playing the original Exorcist, the extended producer’s cut, which I kind of wanted to see, but didn’t have a chance to.

And they had like four or five Thai horror movies that were either playing right now or being heavily promoted at that time. Plus The Nun. I mean, it was, it was very heavily horror. It was pretty interesting. 

Craig: Well, I was going to say, well, it is October, but Like, is Halloween a thing there? No, it’s not. Well, nonetheless.

Heather: When you said you had gone to see it, I was like, how? Cause, I remember in one of your previous episodes, you mentioned that in China, they don’t often show movies there. That are horror or, uh, had spiritual elements or, you know, things of that nature. So that makes sense now that you were not in 

Todd: China. Yeah, yeah.

And in China, the movies don’t pass the censors. If they have any supernatural elements, the only way to get around that. Sometimes producers will actually add a quick little scene or an extra scene or whatever that somehow changes the story so that by the end of it, it turns out that the person was crazy and it was all happening in their heads or something like that, you know, so yeah, it’s just one of those things.

So no, there was no hope of seeing it in China. Thank God I was out and was able to catch it on the big screen because it’s been getting a lot of, um, reviews and not all of them are positive. 

Craig: I’ve not read anything positive about it except for you. You said you liked it, and that’s the only person. That 

Todd: I’ve heard that from.

And what I did say is, I liked it, and I hadn’t read any of their reviews before I went in. I didn’t see any press about it. Embarrassingly, I didn’t even realize this was coming out. It’s 

Craig: David Gordon Green. He’s the same guy that did the, uh, Halloween… Trilogy the most recent one and that was really polarizing too Now the first one of those you and I watched and we really liked I thought it was really good And then the second one and then the third one I Thought was a perfectly fine movie but I understood why people didn’t like it because it was supposed to be this big final showdown between Laurie and Michael and And it wasn’t about them.

Like, the movie was not about them. They were secondary characters. They did come together for a fight at the end, but they had already done that in the first movie, and better. So, I still enjoyed it, but I understand why people didn’t. And I kind of feel the same way about this movie. I enjoyed it. I had fun watching it, and so I would encourage people to go watch it if they’re not going to get pissed off that it’s not anywhere near the same league as the original.

Like, if that’s going to piss you off, if you’re going to compare it and you’re going to be mad that it’s not as good as the original, don’t bother. Because it’s not. But, you know, as an Exorcist movie? It was okay.

Todd: Heather, had you read any reviews going into it? 

Heather: No, I hadn’t read anything about it. Um, but as soon as I started seeing previews for it, I got really excited, and I actually sent it to Craig. Um, and I was like, oh, I really want to see this. Mainly because I saw that Ellen Burstyn was coming back, and that was exciting.

And like, I made special note of like, The makeup, the design, when they were showing the girls possessed, it was the same makeup design as the original, and I loved that they kept that. Uh, but ultimately, I liked it. I would say definitely go see it, uh, if you were a fan of these movies. But there were just some things that I was…

It’s a little bit disappointed with, ultimately, because, I mean, it’s not the original. 

Craig: It’s not, but I really did have fun and I had fun going with Heather because there were several times that both of us laughed and I was glad that she was with me because if I had been the only one in the theater laughing, I would have felt

Um, because I wasn’t laughing because it was trying to be funny,

and because we saw it in the theater. I didn’t take any notes, so I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to remember specifically what I was laughing about. Most of it was in the end. But there were just, I don’t know, some, some silly things. Do we want to get into it? Because I want to say right out of the gate.

What my biggest problem with this movie is, is that, are we cool? 

Todd: We’re cool with it, but I, I, I don’t know if I made my point clear as well, that after, uh, you mentioned to me that it was getting poor reviews, I did go out and read the reviews and I think I messaged you back and I said, yeah, I pretty much agree with all of the negative comments about the movie, but like you guys, I didn’t feel like.

It made the movie a bad movie. I just felt like it, it just didn’t live up to the Admittedly super high and probably unreachable expectations of you know the original right like it’s a pretty high bar to cross If you try to make the movie exactly like the first one or try to get all the same notes You’re kind of doing more of a remake with different characters and slightly different situations so I could see where They were trying to kind of extend it a little bit, try to shake things up with a little bit more of that inner faith and things.

But I do feel like most of the criticism came down to the fact that it just lost a lot of its edge because it got all muddled with so many characters and Yes. It loses focus and part of the focus and intensity of the original is because it is that girl and that demon with that one and then two priests.

all in that room. Uh, and it’s just, it feels like the stakes are really, really high and there’s very little that can be 

Craig: done. I agree with you. I think the problem, one of the problems is that it’s not different enough. Like it’s, it’s basically the same story, but, but this time it’s two girls and This time, it’s not just Catholics who can do exorcisms, but other than that, pretty much the same.

Just not as, just not as good. For a couple of reasons, but I, I, I feel like for chronology’s sake, it opens what, in Haiti? It was at where they were. Yeah. Okay. So they’re in Haiti and it’s this couple, this young, beautiful, uh, couple and they’re photographers, both of them. And she is wildly pregnant. They separate because he wants to like, I don’t know, like climb a bell tower or something to take pictures.

And she’s like, Nine month pregnant, she doesn’t want to climb a bell tower. So, they separate, and while they’re apart, there’s an earthquake. And she is caught in, uh, some, some stuff falls on her. And the doctors tell him, he’s played by, um, the guy from Hamilton, by the way. Leslie Odom Jr. What’s his name?

Leslie Odom Jr. The doctors tell him that they can only save… His wife or the baby and he has to make the choice and then it immediately cuts to 13 years later in his home with him and his 13 year old daughter. Yep. Fine. Great. Good setup. Okay, here’s my problem. These girls who get possessed. We do not get to know them at all.

Not one little bit. There is one scene. With the dad and the daughter. The other girl, I don’t even remember if she speaks before they’re out in the woods doing, like, teenage witchy stuff. And that bothers me because then there are no stakes, like, they get possessed and I’m like, eh, I don’t care, so what. We, 

Todd: we do get to know them, though, because we see them at school and they’re chatting around and they’re, you’re right, the one girl, um, Catherine is the one, is 

Craig: the…

The 

Todd: friend. The white girl. Yeah. The friend. Uh, Angela’s black and Catherine is white. I feel like we get to know a lot of Angela. Really? 

Craig: She just has that one conversation with her dad, and we know that she… Misses her mom. 

Todd: That’s it. She’s planning an event and she misses her mom. Maybe I remember it slightly differently.

I, I just, I, I see, I feel like I remember a little bit more of Angela. And very, very little of Catherine. Like Catherine pops in, like you said. Uh, as a friend who, you know, they’re like swapping notes in class and sending messages to each other to arrange this meetup that never happens. You’re right. We never really get to see Catherine until they meet up in the woods and have that one scene.

I don’t 

Craig: know, so it just seems like the stakes are really low. Heather, what did you think? 

Heather: No, I agree. I mean, in the beginning, we… Get to know her a little bit. I mean, she’s going through her mom’s things, so she’s trying to get to learn things about her. Um, and the dad’s kind of protective of all of those sentimental items.

But then, yeah, that’s it, and then they’re in the classroom, and I think you’re right. I think something was off with our sound, because there’s a whole exchange, um, with her and the girl sitting behind her, and they’re whispering about, I don’t know, the plans for the night, and you, I couldn’t hear it. I missed the entire 

Craig: thing.

I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. No. And then they’re disappeared. Like, and when they’re in the woods, I say they do, like, teenage witchy stuff, like, it’s not anything serious. No. You know, it’s just, like, they’re kinda trying to do, like, a little seance or something, cause Angela wants to talk to her mom.

Totally, totally innocent stuff. But, the movie, I think, eventually tells us that that opens them up to evil spirits. It’s muddy. Yeah. I don’t really get it. Like, I don’t Well Like, I don’t understand the s Is there really any significance of that place that they are in the woods, or is it just, it’s 

Todd: spooky?

Well, it’s almost like a scary stories that tell in the dark type situation where you get this idea that maybe Catherine Had this ritual that she learned about or heard about because she says something as Angela brings the scarf right 

Craig: of her Yeah, yeah, well, but she doesn’t that’s the thing like her debt.

She was going to she was supposed to bring She was supposed to bring some kind of personal item, but her dad Took it away from her before she went to school. So she didn’t really have anything, which kind of is a plot point later. 

Todd: Yeah, it almost seems to like imply that because she didn’t have that personal item with her, then just any spirit could enter her maybe instead of that.

Heather: But yeah, that’s mentioned because when she’s finally talking about what they had done and they were going, and the whole point was that if they had an object, they were going because she. Could hear her mom’s voice. If they had the object, then her mom would speak to her. But like, since she didn’t have the scarf because her dad had taken it away, Mm hmm.

Todd: Her mom wasn’t there. So yeah, but I mean, in fairness, like, I mean, compared to the original movie, it’s just a Ouija board. That’s true. Yeah. And did we, it’s been so long, you’re gonna have to refresh my memory. We are planning to do The Exorcist in the very near future, but I haven’t seen it in a very long time.

Do we really get to know that much about Reagan? 

Craig: Well, no, but, no, but we are, we spend more time with her before she is in the throes of possession, and that’s another thing, like, maybe the Exorcist is a little bit quaint. in their portrayal of Regan, because even though Regan, I think Linda Blair was 15 when she played the part, but they kind of infantilized her a little bit.

Like, she’s very childlike. Probably in a way that would read as false today. And, and it was a little, I think for some reason, jarring to me how old these girls were. I almost felt like it would have been scarier, and the stakes would have been higher if they had been… Younger. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t… So, okay.

So, they’re lost, right? And they… They’re gone. Like, their parents are freaking out. Everybody’s looking for them. And they eventually find them three days later, thirty miles away. In a barn. 

Todd: Mm hmm. Traumatized. Yeah. 

Craig: Right. They have no idea where they’ve been. They think they’ve only been gone a couple of hours.

And this too, like, the second they’re back, Catherine, her eyes are rolling around in her head. Like, like the second they’re back, they are possessed. And it’s 

Todd: Well, to be fair, I mean, there’s a, there’s a bit of, of scenery in the hospital where they’re just kind of stunned, right? They’re just sitting there.

They’re not answering questions or they’re being very vague. They’re not really talking. They almost just seem like they’re in another world. And, uh, in the process of trying to sort of shake them out of it, eventually, yeah, Catherine starts to, to do that. But I feel like a little more time passes before that happens.

But 

Craig: it’s minutes. It’s minutes before, uh, Angela, she like, here’s a crying baby outside and she walks slowly and ominously up to the window of her room and slapped. it and the baby stops crying and everybody looks around like all of this happens mere minutes after they are back Well, and and a lot of like they go to sleep that night and then they wake up the next morning and they are full out demons 

Todd: I Mean a lot of that’s due to the fact that like in between all that like I think a lot of time passes here, and a lot of stuff is going on, but it’s not with the girls.

It’s with all the people rushing in. It’s all the byplay between the fathers, and there’s some tension there between the fathers and the parents, and some disagreements and some accusations happening. And, and that… I thought was interesting. I liked that bit of the story at this time, because I could see, as a father, you know, whose son has had a run in or two with another kid at school or whatever, thankfully nothing really came of it, but I’ve thought about the fact that, man, maybe I’m gonna have to face these parents, and they’re gonna be, you know, way more upset about XYZ than I am, and we’re gonna have to negotiate.

Above their own problem, even if the kids kind of make up, now the parents are forming their opinions about our family. And then with the religious aspect of it thrown in between all these parents, you know, I think that is, um, what the filmmaker is spending a lot of time here setting up. Is this other layer of dynamic, right, between the parents and how they’re gonna deal with it, and the potential conflicts that are gonna happen there, uh, in their approaches.

You know what I’m saying? 

Craig: Yes. And I agree with you. And I don’t, I thought that all of the actors in the movie were terrific. I thought that they nailed their performances. I didn’t, I’m not sure I cared. And like, I couldn’t tell if they were trying to imply that Jennifer Nettles and her husband, they’re Catherine’s parents, if they were trying to imply that they were racist?

Like it seemed like they were initially, and then that just kind of dropped. Like, like, she says something, uh, Jennifer Nettles is the actress, her character name is Miranda, but she says something to Angela’s dad. She’s like, I didn’t even know my daughter was friends with your daughter, and if I did, this wouldn’t be the first time we were meeting.

Yeah. They’re very angry at each other. Catherine’s parents are particularly angry at him, and I don’t really understand why. Or maybe I just don’t remember. I don’t know. No, 

Heather: I think you’re right. I think it’s more because they are religious, they don’t know anything about their family, and so now… Oh, okay.

His daughter has gotten their daughter into something, and… Oh, okay. That makes sense. Had they met prior, you know, they would’ve… Known more about them and her and yeah, she would never been in this position. 

Craig: I think you’re right. That makes sense Yeah, so it’s all it’s kind of all their business I don’t even remember like the order that things happen like I feel like that You know I said they go to sleep and then the next day they’re full out demons the way that that manifests is Angela like pisses all over herself And then, tries to kill her dad, and so she ends up in the hospital.

And then, Catherine is at church with her parents, acting all kinds of weird. And when her parents go up for communion, they come back and she’s gone. And, uh, the dad goes looking for her, and she is like, desecrated the communion stuff. And then there’s that moment from the trailer where she walks down the aisle.

Chanting like what body in the blood body in the blood or something like that and she’s all bloody and weird So she ends up back in the hospital 

Todd: See this is 

Heather: where I started to get a little frustrated because I was really enjoying The little bits of them getting possessed me too, and I wanted more but it was like Angela, you know, wakes up, and she does a little bit of weird stuff, and then she has convulsions, and then Katherine gets whisked away from the church, and then, all of a sudden, boom, uh, her dad is putting her in a mental hospital, and I just thought, well, that, it just escalated really quickly.

It did. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: But I mean, what came, you know, these girls, I don’t really think this is unbelievable because, uh, and I don’t even think it was that fast and it escalated that quickly because these people have no idea what happened to these girls. They’re afraid, I mean, somebody could have taken them, somebody could have sexually assaulted them, you know, the nurse at one point, you know, after they do the examination says there’s no hint of that, but like, what is it?

They’re worried about the girl’s mental health and what trauma could they have been through that they don’t know, so I, I would, if I were a parent, I would be. One step away from the hospital that entire time and ready to rush them in to be evaluated or you know to have some professional talk to them at the first sign of.

Well them even speaking up because they’re quite not themselves for the rest of the movie So I mean, you know, I actually didn’t I didn’t think that was too rushed I would have rushed my kid to the hospital if they started behaving like that right especially after that and then on top of that I mean, let’s be fair if we’re gonna if we’re gonna compare to the original exorcist Linda Blair pees herself And then complains to her mom, and then she’s basically in bed the rest of the time, and also, you know, flopping up and down in bed, and then weird shit starts happening almost immediately after that.

Right, right, but we spend There’s not a gradual 

Craig: progression there either. But we spend so much time with her. That’s the other thing, like, there’s so much business before they even get to the exorcism. Like, maybe I’m remembering it through rose colored glasses, but I remember the original. That exorcism went on forever.

Like, I feel like it went on for days. And I feel like it takes them days to get there and then when they finally get there, it’s kind of silly. I think 

Todd: you do misremember the original because I agree with you, the exorcism feels really, really long because it’s so intense. But there is a lot of the Father Charis going to the parents and the parents not knowing what to do, and then the hospital, and then she’s back home, but then like, I mean, there is a lot of, uh, non exorcism stuff that is nowhere near that bedroom that goes on for a good portion of the movie.

I mean, heck, even the opening of the movie has nothing to do with possession or anything, you know? I mean, it’s just different because that is more focused. I, like Heather, I did kind of appreciate a little more of this other stuff, like the pre Exorcism thing, because that’s not how I remember the original.

But that being said, I also felt like there was a little more mystery here. Like, in the first one, oh, she does the Ouija board, now she’s possessed. In this one, they have their theory. thing, but we don’t really know what happened, and they’re gone for three days, and what the hell’s up with that? Because we’re seeing a movie called The Exorcist Believer, we, we just know that they’re possessed.

And so maybe we’re just a little more impatient, and we figure like we’ve solved the mystery 

Craig: already. Not only, not only do we know that they’re possessed, but we know what this kind of possession looks like. So, it kills the anticipation. You know, watching the first one, sure, you go to a movie called The Exorcist, you expect somebody’s going to be possessed, but we don’t know what that’s going to look like.

Now, we do. And so, there’s just not, it doesn’t inspire dread. Like, I, I didn’t think the movie was scary. Now, maybe somebody who hasn’t seen a lot of horror movies would think it was really scary, but I didn’t. Uh, the other thing is, and you just, I think, suggested this, the, the first movie is really tight.

And this movie is kind of all, there are so many characters, I don’t really connect with any of them. And I think that, in particular, uh, Angela’s dad, Leslie Odom Jr. and Catherine’s mom, Jennifer Nettles, are supposed to have character arcs. But it just happens. Because we haven’t really gotten to know either of them well enough, when they have a big moment at the end, I’m like, okay, whatever.

I I don’t know. I don’t know. And then there’s the whole thing with, uh, the nurse Anne, played by Anne Dowd, who is Aunt Lydia on, yeah, on, uh, what is that show? Handmaid’s Tale. And she’s amazing. She’s a horrible person on that show, but over the course of the series she gains a lot of sympathy. She’s a great actress.

But here, it’s so bizarre. Like, for, for some reason, the demon in Which, by the way, I don’t really understand this. Is this, I guess it’s the same demon in both of them? Uh, I 

Todd: don’t know. Anyway, whatever. 

Craig: That’s a good question. The demon in Angela immediately reveals herself to this nurse, who is also their neighbor.

Was she the mean neighbor from the beginning? It took me a minute to put that together. But anyway, she says something to her. She’s like, Sister Mary Xavier, You got scraped out like a rotten pumpkin. And then, uh, Angela starts bleeding from her downstairs. So then Anne goes to the dad. Victor. And says, You asked me before if I had ever seen anything like this.

Because he had and she said no I haven’t but I read this book and she gives him a book and Then he’s like all skeptical. He’s like, I don’t believe in God and then she’s like well, wait Let me tell you about this and she says she tells him about you know What Angela said and she’s like nobody ever knew that I never told anybody that ever and it turns out that this book that he Gave her is Chris McNeil Ellen Burstyn from the first movie.

It’s her book And she wrote this book and then she kind of became the foremost, er, forefront expert on Exorcists. This is so dumb. And, and, and does this, this, like, okay, so I read that this movie is just like the Halloween franchise, wherein they are completely ignoring all of the sequels. But, isn’t this footage that they show of young Ellen Burstyn and the notion that she wrote a book and got famous on it, isn’t that part of the plot of Part 2?

Todd: I don’t remember that. I think 

Craig: it is. I think it is. Maybe I’m mistaken. I don’t know. But anyway, it’s just a really silly way to get Ellen Burstyn in the movie because she’s, even though she’s never witnessed An exorcism. She’s the top expert. 

Todd: Well, I don’t know if they paint her as the top expert on them, but she’s like the pop culture representative because she wrote this bestselling book and had this famous incident happen.

So she’s the one who did the talk show circuits and things like that and sort of as an advocate, you know, but, uh, you know, she still can’t, you know, she admittedly has never even witnessed one and she can’t perform one, you know, so. But 

Craig: she tries? 

Todd: Yeah. But out of desperation. No, but she tries 

Craig: to! No, I agree with you Heather, that didn’t make any sense.

Todd: But isn’t the idea that… I, maybe I’m wrong about this, but isn’t the idea that you don’t have to be a priest to perform an exorcism? Like you just have to have 

Craig: faith. Well, that’s the thing that she introduces. Yeah, she says that um, exorcism is not something that’s limited to catholicism. Every culture from the dawn of time has had ceremonies to expel negative And that’s what the movie is trying to say, too.

Like, you know, it’s not just a Christian or a Catholic thing. This can happen to anybody. And, you know, anybody can fix it, I guess. And so I guess that must be what she thinks. Because, well, first of all, it’s important to note that she got all of this fame, but it came at the cost of her relationship with her daughter.

She hasn’t seen, she doesn’t know where Regan is. She hasn’t seen her for years because Regan was resentful that… You know, her name got dragged into all of this, and it brought her a lot of attention she didn’t want, so she went off the grid. And, Chris has no idea where she is, and that makes her sad. So, when they, almost immediately, like, she has a big talk, like, she gives a big long lecture about mysticism and stuff, whatever.

And then, uh, they take her to see the girls. And she goes and she sees Catherine first, and we see… But they don’t. That Katherine has carved Reagan into her bed frame with her nail. And… Ellen Burstyn immediately takes one look at her and says, She knows who I am. Let me see the other one. What? And so then, he sends her in there alone?

Is that how that 

Heather: played out? Well, they go and visit Angela first in the, uh, insane asylum. And that’s when they learn that they’re taking care of Katherine at her home. Which I immediately was like, well that’s a terrible idea. Yeah. So they go then to Katherine’s house. No one’s answering the door, but then Ellen Burstyn’s character, she looks up in the window and sees possessed Catherine staring out at them.

And so they go into the house, um, and everyone’s scared and hiding and panicked. And so, uh, the dad tries to get. The siblings out of the house, and then Ellen Burstyn continues up the stairs into Catherine’s room all by herself, 

Craig: which right, and finds Catherine looking exactly like Reagan. Catherine speaks to her in the demon voice and says, like, Are you looking for Reagan?

It’s just so it’s the ties are so tenuous 

Todd: and but it’s the. It’s the idea that she’s faced this particular demon before, so the demon knows her. 

Craig: It’s the idea of that, but we’re never really told that concretely. 

Todd: I sort of feel like, well, we aren’t. You’re right. We are never told that concretely, and how realistic is that?

I don’t know. I don’t know what the, how demons operate in this particular universe. Right, it’s, it’s like 

Craig: Jaws 4. Like, Maybe, yeah, right. It’s, this demon has a personal vendetta against Yeah, 

Todd: just jumps from girl to girl just to get closer Burstyn. But, but that’s what she meant when she said, She’s seen me before.

She didn’t mean the girl, she meant the demon. She could recognize the demon inside Angela’s eyes. And so, when she goes into the room and she sees her, this leads to, uh, When you talk about callbacks to the first movie, this leads to, uh, Catherine running over to the window where she has a crucifix with, that has a sharp point on the bottom.

Oh god, I saw that and I’m like, I know, right? Please don’t 

Craig: put that in your vagina.

Todd: But she stabs her brutally in the eyes, just stabs her eyes out. And I w I thought that was quite shocking. I don’t Heather, you were, uh, you said earlier, I’m sorry to diverge here, but you said earlier, you were very excited to see Ellen Burstyn. In this movie, right? Like, uh, Yes, 

Heather: I was I I love I think she’s a brilliant actress and I was so excited that they were bringing back her character for this movie and Oh boy just So many of her lines were they were just such a slog Like they were just so on the nose and well, it was just hard to listen to her.

Sometimes there’s 

Todd: a lot of preachiness in this movie too. A little too much on the, especially at the end when it’s almost too cutesy and how it tries to wrap up everything in a morality lesson. Oh, that’s one of the 

Craig: parts that we both laughed at. That’s funny when we get there now. Yep. Okay. But, okay. I have a theory.

I have a theory about this scene because, uh, the demon girl does stab her. In both of her eyes, and then she’s standing there like wailing with blood just running down her face and Victor comes in and gets her out and takes her to the hospital, but I have a theory what I have read now. I don’t know if this is true, but this is what I’ve read the original cut of this movie when they screened it for test audiences.

got terrible, terrible response, so they went back in and did a lot of reshoots and shot a new ending. I have a theory that in the original cut, Ellen Burstyn was killed in this moment. Could be. And I think that that would have been more impactful, and I kept, I kept thinking they have to kill her off because there’s no way they can count on her living through making the next one.

Todd: Yeah, well she, she almost didn’t make it to this movie, not, not health wise, but she, she didn’t even really want to do it. Right. I understand that, uh, she was just offered a ton of money, and at one point she realized, hey, I could use that money and create a scholarship at the actor’s studio or something, because she’s heavily involved.

Uh huh. Uh, in the actor’s. studio. I think she’s like co president right now or something like that. So that’s exactly what she did. She 

Craig: turned it down and this, uh, you know, she was approached. They wanted her in the sequel, um, but she wouldn’t do it. Uh, so they had to devise a reason for her character to be away.

I think she was supposed to be off shooting a movie or something, but, uh, they, you know, they wanted to get her back from the beginning and she didn’t want to. She had a bad experience on the first one. She was, uh, injured. William Friedkin, did William Friedkin direct it? He did. Yes. First one. And he had, he had kind of like, gonzo directing tactics and, uh, she did not have a positive experience doing it.

So she didn’t want to do it. The only way they got her to come back was they gave her an offer, she said no. They doubled the offer. And she said yes, but she donated her, uh, earnings to charity, which I think is really cool. Um, but if you read IMDB, it says… This is the first time she’s back, but she reprised her role in the series.

That’s not true! Whoever put that trivia in there is wrong. Because I saw the series, and her character is in the series, but she’s played by a different woman. She’s played by Cagney or Lacey. 

Todd: I don’t remember which one! I can never keep those two apart. 

Craig: But anyway, she gets stabbed in the eyeballs. And I don’t remember what happens at this point.

Like there’s a whole subplot where Anne is trying to convince this young priest. What do we know about this person? Like, it seems like he’s supposed to be important for some reason, but I have no idea why. I have no idea 

Todd: why. I think he’s just the young priest who, um, takes an interest in it because they reach out to him because it’s, it’s, well, it’s all the parents, I believe, Victor, Miranda, and Tony, and Anne.

They all decide they need to reach out to a priest because that’s what they did in the first case, right? Right. And so they go to see him. That’s right. And then who is it? Chris? Who is Chris? Chris is Ellen Burstyn. Ellen Burstyn. She’s the one who, like you said earlier, had told Victor, like, that any culture, religion, you can do this.

And so, they also go and they look for this, they find this root work healer that his neighbor sort of brings over. Which was weird, right? He comes home from wherever he is from work and the door’s open and somebody’s in his house and it’s his neighbor who’s got this woman. Who’s sitting there on his, on the bed of the girl, like, doing some root thing.

I don’t know, the candles and some ceremony. And he’s like, who are you and what are you doing in here? And for a brief, brief moment, am I wrong about this? Did he look at this woman’s face and think it was his dead wife? I don’t know. I thought there was a little flash, or hint of that, where for a moment it was her, but then it turned out to be this woman.

Anyway, yeah, and then the other neighbors in there are just like, Oh, hey neighbor, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m just trying to help bring my friend over. She’s helped in lots of other situations that I’ve had. He chases them out, but they end up bringing her in as well. So, assembling the Avengers.

For this exorcism. It 

Craig: totally is. Because is it Ellen Burstyn who talks about church and how like, yeah, church is about going and praising God and celebrating God, but it’s also about community, is it her that says that? Yeah. And, and she’s like, and, and there’s strength. In that community, and so the idea is, we have to get everybody, I guess, who like, loves these girls.

Right. We have to all come together to, you know, like, by the power of community. 

Todd: It’s the It’s the care bears, you know, 

Craig: it takes, it takes a village to exercise a child. 

Todd: There you go.

Heather: Oh, and they do this like slow mo walk, like down the sidewalk, you’ve got the nurse and the root worker and the Baptist. Priest or the catholic priest and oh my god. I was I was just like what is happening 

Todd: right now. There’s the baptist pastor There’s the pentecostal preacher. It’s so crazy But the twist is that the catholic church decides they’re not going to let them do it.

I that would surprise me Uh father maddox comes over and is like no the diocese like forbid it. I can’t do anything. I’m really really really sorry But he like hands his um bible over 

Craig: to the nurse because she I don’t remember if we said this or not, she had intended to become a nun, but just before she was supposed to take her vows or whatever, she got pregnant and had that abortion.

So she is educated in the church. And he basically says, you know, God is in all of us. We all have the power to drive out evil. And he gives her the book. I just thought this is, it’s, it’s silly. Like it’s why he obviously thinks. that it should be done. Like, I guess it’s just his obligation to the church that 

Todd: he can’t.

Well, you know, okay, it’s a it’s an institution. They’ve got rules. They’ve got to follow I mean that was a big thing in the first exorcist, right? like that was part of the whole plot was were they gonna allow this to happen and they were skeptical that it was a More of a psychiatry problem exorcisms are old like we’re not gonna say that they are not necessary at times But those are very very very Very narrow circumstances and Reagan just sort of barely passed.

So I mean, you know, this didn’t bother me to this point I actually thought oh this could be interesting. I like this idea That it’s not limited now just to the catholic faith. Although in all honesty, it’s like mostly christian and one Like, kind of voodoo lady? Ha ha ha ha! Like, we didn’t have like the Hindu in there, we didn’t have the Muslim, you know, we didn’t have even Jewish or like any of the major, major religions represented outside of four different sects of Christianity and one random, non denominational, Haitian sort of, I don’t know, you know?

I mean, it just didn’t feel balanced in that way. The concept would have been better anyway if they could have brought in a few, a couple more religions. 

Heather: I agree. And that was one of the aspects that I really liked about it. I liked all the different religions and cultures and beliefs coming together. But ultimately the, not to jump ahead, but the Catholic priest still comes in at the end, like a superhero.

Craig: Oh my God. That was one of the moments that you and I both laughed out loud. I like the idea of different, because, and I think that this is what the movie is trying to do, but you’re right, it’s not diverse enough. What they’re trying to say is, basically we all believe the same things, we just practice it different.

Right. All of the, I don’t know, spiritualists, religious leaders, like the priest, the preacher, the minister, like they all kind of get on board with one another and are trying to work together. Yeah, which 

Todd: is surprising. Kind of, 

Craig: but the ones who are particularly skeptical are Catherine’s parents, because I think that they’re nervous about stepping out of their Christian beliefs.

She comes to a point where they’re trying something, they’re praying, like Anne is praying, she’s trying to do the traditional exorcism. And it’s not working, and Jennifer, Jennifer Nettles, I can’t help but call her that. Jennifer Nettles is like, we have to try something else, this isn’t working. So, it’s obvious that she is willing to do whatever it takes.

But the dad is still very reluctant, and remains very reluctant, and I really don’t understand why. But at some point he goes outside. And hangs out out there for a while. And then he comes back in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don’t know. This goes on for a while, but, It’s just not very exciting. I read, I’m skeptical of this, But I read, uh, That Linda Blair was like an on set, Consultant for the girls during this performance and I’m not saying that they don’t do a good job I I these young actresses do a fine job It’s just not as scary to me and I think part of I don’t know.

I don’t know Was there what was it CGI? 

Todd: I don’t know. For me, it was just too many people in the room. I mean, how can anything be that scary when the room is literally crammed full of people with all the lights on and those two girls in the middle? Like, what are they gonna do that, to any one of them, that the others can’t…

Save them from, you know, it’s not the sort of situation like toss Father Karas out the window kind of deal, right? Right, you know that you get and I mean it just feels so intense and so dangerous For that one and two people in the room in the original and this just doesn’t compare and there’s so much stuff happening and people coming and going and In the midst of this.

So I think that’s what it is. It just, it’s so diluted. And then the girls come in and say some scary things every now and then, which I did find freaky because I, again, I was still into the movie here because I thought this could be interesting. Like what new fresh horrors can these demons who seem so in control and so one step ahead of everybody.

And so up in everybody’s heads in their own way due to this room full of people. And the answer is not. 

Craig: No, they don’t do much of 

Heather: anything. Well, and one of the big things is, so the girls are hooked up onto monitors and their hearts are beating in sync. So it’s like the demon is in control of both of them at the exact same time.

But yeah, the nurse is there and she’s got her metal crucifix and she’s doing the, the Catholic exorcism. But the, the. Crucifix gets too hot and she drops it and blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. And then the root worker comes in and she’s blessing water and dumping it on them. And that feels like it’s really working.

Yeah, 

Craig: it looked like they expelled something out. Yeah. But, but like something came out of them, like some kind of like ghost vapor or something. But then somebody like. The mom is like, is that it? And she’s like, no, that’s just the beginning. But, uh, the beginning of what? Like, uh, well then what just happened?

Was that like, just like a, a burp? Like, I don’t know. But there, there’s, there’s no explaining it. And, and maybe I want too much. Maybe this, other people don’t find it necessary. But we don’t know why this demon is here. What does it want? Like… We 

Todd: don’t know the rules. Yeah, we don’t know what’s… Just like the first one, we don’t really know why it’s there.

It could just be, this is what demons do. Sure. And she was unlucky. It’s kind of the same here. And Joy’s toying with these people and playing with these people. But in the first one, there also, there’s just this sense that the demon has a kind of goal beyond the girl, right? It’s almost like… Father, the way that Father Karas gets pulled into this and the way that it is drawing out his insecurity and really doing the mind games.

With him? Yeah. Um, really getting to the heart of the matter, you almost feel like this was its purpose all along. This guy was fated to this thing. Right here, we got too many people for that to be the case. Even still, the demons are still taunting these people and pulling out their secrets. Like, for example, Victor.

We kind of assume, because the gir the his daughter’s the alive one and his wife is dead, that he chose to save his daughter, uh, at the beginning of the movie instead of the wife, uh, when he had to make that choice. But the demon comes in and says, You know that you didn’t want to save your daughter, did you?

You wanted to save your wife, and your wife just died, and your daughter ended up being alive. And the way that he plays with that, with their guilt, that is something that was Key to the original movie and started to really do here plays with the nurse’s guilt with her as the nun, uh, and failing there.

And, and, you know, she’s got something she’s trying to prove through this as well. That’s kind of her arc, you know, Victor’s arc is to come to belief the, I feel like the Catherine’s parents arc is to kind of come out of their perhaps judgmental 

Craig: shell. I think that, uh, the mom, I think Catherine’s mom’s arc is supposed to, she learns.

Empathy. Right. Um. Right. Because, ultimately, the, the demons give them an ultimatum, and this is so dumb, like, why? I don’t believe for a second the demon would say, would do this, because, I don’t know, but we’ll get, but the ultimatum is, you all. One girl lives and one girl dies, and you have to choose. Victor and Miranda, Catherine’s mom, look at each other, and he says something like, I can’t choose.

And she says, we can’t choose. Up to this point, it seemed like she would do anything to save her daughter. But at this point, I think it’s supposed to Like they 

Todd: were on the same 

Craig: It felt like it was supposed to be a revelation for her, but there wasn’t enough buildup to it for it to really pay off 

Todd: anything.

Yeah, it couldn’t be because, yeah, you’re right. Because we, we just had too many characters to worry about. Well, and we never 

Heather: saw her in another light. Like we only see her as this concerned mom for her daughter. And so. Which I think was absolutely appropriate, right? So like, I never saw anything else about her to say like, Oh, she’s a bitch, you know?

To play 

Todd: devil’s advocate here, that’s kind of a good thing, right? That she didn’t come across as a one note character, but had some empathy there. So like, you kind of see why, you know, ultimately, none of these parents want their kids to die. Nobody wants the Sophie’s Choice situation. Nobody’s willing to ste Thank God nobody was willing to ste step up and do it.

And I just saw that moment. I didn’t really see it as a turning point for her character, but I just saw it as a moment where it was made clear that the two sets of parents were in solidarity. Whereas they had been bickering and fighting before that, you did kind of wonder if one was prioritizing their daughter over the other and cared more.

At that moment, they made it clear to each other that we are not going to choose, neither one of us. That’s how, that’s how I read that 

Craig: moment. Well, right, but they’re on the same page, but Dad is around the corner, freaking out. And that’s when, you know, a lot of stuff… Oh, we skipped the superhero entrance of the priest.

Like, something goes wrong. I don’t remember what, but something goes wrong. Angela’s 

Heather: dad has to go empty the bowl of, like, devil… Water. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: That’s it. 

Heather: And so, he goes outside, and he… Dumps it in the sewer. And I was like, well, there’s the start for part two. But then he sees the Catholic priest sitting in his car praying and he walks up to the window and taps on it and says, Hey, the fights inside.

And that’s when the Catholic priest finally. Gets up the nerve or decides that he’s going to go against the church or whatever to go inside and help and 

Craig: like a 

Todd: rock star. I know I thought this was such I love actually I thought this was a brilliant part of the movie. It was a big joke. You know he comes in like a rock star and you think okay just like in the original.

The Catholic Church has taken control here, and they’re gonna save the day. And it seems to be working. He’s got his hands on both of those girls, and they’re really reacting strongly against him, or at least they appear to be. And then, in another throwback to the original, again, in a way I thought was just brilliant, he gets the head twisting treatment.

Craig: Yeah. But it breaks his neck and kills him, and you’re right, I think that this was an intentional joke, and to me it was just really tonally uneven. Like, this, this hasn’t been an intentionally winky movie up until this point, and then this seems like intentionally jokey. 

Todd: Well, I don’t know. I don’t mean like jokey, like har har, like we just made a funny, I almost mean it like uh, Like, we’re subverting movie convention here.

You don’t expect him to die, and then the build up of this scene is like, Oh, he’s this is how the day gets saved. Uh, and then, Eh! Sorry, you’re wrong. And and again, it’s like, I think it’s it’s almost like, Wipes the slate clean again, And brings everybody down to a level of despair. Like, even I’m sitting there, I’m going, Well, shit, what in the world are they gonna do?

Ha ha ha ha, you know? Yeah, it was 

Heather: in that moment where I was like, Well, what can’t the demon do then, you know? Like, he could kill everybody in the room right now, so then… 

Todd: But isn’t that, isn’t that the central question? Like, this has always bothered me about the original Exorcist. Like, this demon can throw shit around, he can stab anybody he wants, he can, I mean, he can, he can make her float.

He can make the whole house fall in. Why isn’t he? You know, what is keeping him from doing that? So I felt like that was consistent from the first movie. That was part of the horror of it. 

Craig: I think it’s because this is just occurring to me now. I think that the demon does have an end game and I think it wins.

Oh, yeah. So ultimately, I think it it it’s leading. to a climactic moment. I mean, it’s the climax that the demon wants. I feel like it’s at this point that both girls start pleading with their parents. Pick me, pick me. I don’t want to die. It’s very heart wrenching, and I couldn’t imagine being in that situation.

And frankly, I would probably pick my kid. You know, when all’s said and done, I’ll feel terrible that that other kid is dead. But, mine’s not. Mmm. And so, I, I, the, the, the climactic moment, like, they’re both pleading, everybody’s saying, uh, you know, don’t touch them. Angela, for some reason, starts levitating.

She’s floating in midair. Well, and Catherine, like, it’s like Catherine is trying to levitate, too, but she’s still bound in the chair, so her body’s just, like, putting pressure on the ropes. At the height of all this craziness, the dad bursts in from around the corner and says, I pick you talking to Catherine, I pick you and the mom’s like, and the, the crazy shaking and everything gets more intense for a moment.

And then Angela crashes to the floor and everything stops. 

Heather: Oh yeah. And Catherine wakes up 

Todd: and she’s normal. Angela’s flatlined on the machine. And then we get a shot in Angela’s head, I suppose, of her back in that corridor. No, that’s Catherine, right? Am I getting the names mixed up? You’re right, Catherine.

Catherine is the one who flatlined, yeah. Catherine, uh, in the corridor, uh, and it’s like she wakes up and she’s in this place again, and she’s like, Mommy? Daddy? Where is everybody? And you hear this, I choose you! And she screams no and she gets pulled down into the water. She’s basically being dragged to hell.

I thought this was a freaking bleak as hell ending. I just, I had an emotional impact for me. I didn’t think it was silly at all, but, uh, that was just how I took it. I did 

Heather: not expect one of them to actually die, so that… That was surprising 

Craig: to me. I did. I didn’t think they were both going to make it. I thought that that was going to be, oh, they’re going to be shocking.

They’re going to kill one of these girls. Um, I didn’t know which one it was going to be. And there’s that moment and then she dies. And then there’s also, I think it’s kind of at the same time. Victor is also having flashbacks to when they were in Haiti and his wife was pregnant. I failed to say that while she was there, a Haitian, like, medicine woman or something had blessed the baby.

I don’t know, were we to believe that that somehow… Protected her? Helped to protect her? I don’t know. Because in the end, like, in the end he runs and he grabs that scarf and he puts it on her, I mean… This, I’m jumping a little bit back now, but he like, he’s like, I know you’re in there and your mom loves you and I love you and I want you and you kind of see her, but then that’s when the, the dad picks the other girl.

Um, but anyway, she wakes up and is fine. And then she goes back to school. Uh, one of the, the thing that I liked was as soon as, when Catherine dies, and the mom and dad are both wailing over him, the pastor says, you were tricked. And I like that, because that’s what demons do, and that’s what the devil does.

You know, they, they trick you into making a wrong decision that’s gonna have terrible consequences. Yeah. And it, and it does, and I feel bad for them, like, then we just kind of see a montage of the aftermath, like, Angela’s fine, she goes to school, she looks wistfully at Catherine’s empty chair, Uh, it looks like Catherine’s mom and dad, it just shows he’s sitting alone in a diner, and then she comes and joins him.

I get the impression that their relationship is not going to survive this. Yeah. Is that 

Todd: it? Well, then there’s some preaching No, there’s 

Craig: Yeah. God. Then, okay, so then, it ends, this, and I knew this, we see, uh, Ellen Burstyn, you know, with bandages over 

Todd: her eyes. Yeah, go ahead. Before that, we get that preachiness of the, um, of the nurse who’s, who’s talking to, who’s she talking to?

Somebody random about what evil is? I think this was a bit in the trailer 

Craig: as well. She was talking to the, like an investigator? Yeah, I think like a police 

Todd: investigator. And she just kind of brings it up offhandedly. You know, you know what I think evil is. And, and it’s like the, it’s the loss of hope or the, what the devil wants is for people to lose hope and, uh, don’t lose hope guys.

You know, that was kind of like, There’s, there’s always, 

Craig: there’s always hope. Cut to Ellen Burstyn. 

Todd: This was so trite. I, man, if you could cut out the last 10 minutes of the movie. And improve it tremendously, I think. This, 

Craig: this last scene, I, again I read, I, I can never say with any 100 percent knowledge if these things are true.

Um, but this ending was put on In post, because, uh, you know, for fan service, basically. So, uh, Ellen Burstyn is sitting, you know, looking, not looking out the window because her, she has no eyeballs. Um, so she’s got gauze over her eyes. And the door opens, and we don’t see who is coming in, and I turned to Heather and I said, I wonder who it could be!

Todd: Probably just a nurse checking to see if 

Craig: everything’s okay. And, uh, she hears, whoever it is, and she says, Victor, is that you? And a woman’s hand grabs her hand and starts to kneel, and it’s Linda Blair. She says, No, Mom, it’s me. The end. And

IMDb is rotten because they have Linda Blair billed second in the cast of this movie. So, no surprises if you go to the IMDb page. Thank God I was surprised. 

Todd: I didn’t know. I didn’t know she was going to be in there. Well, 

Craig: I read, again, I think I mentioned it before, but I read that she was initially disinterested.

And, and she, uh, said, uh, because people were approaching her, asking her if she was a part of it, and she said no. I am not a part of it. I think it was only after the movie was completed, uh, and, and tested poorly that they somehow got her to agree to be a part of it. Yeah, now, here’s another thing. thing that, uh, that concerns me.

This is going to be a trilogy. It doesn’t make any difference how well this movie performs because they paid so much for the rights to do it. And so they are contractually bound to make all three movies regardless. Where does it go from here? 

Heather: So in the first Exorcist, we learned that the demon’s name is Pazuzu, right?

Right. Yes. So, yeah, like we know. The demon’s name, we know why it’s there, and unless there is some big, ultimate force that we’re fighting, like, every movie is just gonna be the same. 

Todd: Three girls. Ha Right. I think this demon had a different name, I think it was like Lamashtu, or something. Oh, I don’t know. I never heard a name either.

It was a Blanket or You Miss It thing, I read about it later, it was on Wikipedia. Oh, 

Craig: yeah, because I didn’t notice. I kept waiting for them to say Pazuzu because I wanted to know. I mean, you know, we’re talking about demons, and I think that if Pazuzu can know all of the priests from the first one, he can know all of his backstory and his stuff with his mom and stuff like that.

Presumably any demon can do that. So I, whatever, I don’t care. I was curious. Um, but, but do we continue 

Heather: following? And are we supposed to assume, like, Ellen Burstyn’s character was, like, tied to the possessions? Because during, like, the exorcism, they kept flashing to her in the hospital, and she’s waving her hands like she’s feeling something from it.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. Typical horror trope, isn’t it? Like, she somehow just senses that things are going wrong because she’s had some prior experience with this before, and she cares so much about them. Yeah, I don’t know. I kind of feel 

Craig: like, I don’t know, I kind of feel like the only… Unless they’re gonna continue to follow Angela, which I don’t really…

I’m not invested in her, really. I think the only way to do it is to just make another exorcism movie that exists. world. Um, but I don’t know that we need to follow any of these characters anymore. I don’t know what they have to give us. 

Heather: The only character I could see them continuing with would be Anne Dowd’s character.

Because in this movie, while her character arc was not… Super. But we do learn that her roots were initially in Catholicism. She wanted to be a nun. Uh, she obviously didn’t take her vow, so she turned to the medical field. But she has that moment where she, when she’s getting ready to do the exorcism, says, This is why I’m here.

This was clearly what was intended for me and why I didn’t become a nun. So maybe she’s going to… Go off and fight all the demons. Yeah, she’s 

Todd: super exorcist. Ha, ha, ha, da, da, da. I 

Craig: could see that, you know, um. She’s an interesting character and, and, Yeah, I 

Todd: think you’re on to something there, Heather. I really feel like you’re right.

It seems like she was developed. And especially with her speech at the end. You know, she was 

Craig: definitely. And the movie, yeah, the movie wouldn’t have to be about her. Um, but she could be the tie. You know, that. that ties the world together. I think that would be interesting. The other things that I feel like we didn’t talk about that we should, there were other callbacks to the original two stylistically.

The score, um, was very reminiscent of Tubular Bells, and then at the very, very end, when you have the original actresses back together, I think the actual Tubular Bells comes in. Um, it opens with a savage dog fight, which I feel like is imagery from the first one, and They did the quote unquote subliminal demon face flashes, um, at various parts.

Uh, so he did, you know, make an attempt to connect, um, the movie to the original. Uh, it just, it just, it didn’t land. Really. Again, I didn’t hate it. I had fun watching it. You know, I, I had fun going to the theater with Heather and my parents, both of my parents, by the way, my mom hated it because they killed Catherine.

Like that was just that. That was a no deal for her. My dad was like, It was good.

He got, when I started complaining about it, he got kind of defensive. He was like, well, it’s never going to be as good as the original.

And I agree. I agree. Like that’s, that’s a reasonable defense. It’s not going to be as good as the original. If you can get past that and you can just enjoy it for free. fun, you know, especially right now. It’s October. It’s in the theater. Go see it with a group 

Todd: of people. I tell you what, I think if you would call this movie the possession of Angela and Catherine or whatever, I think it wouldn’t be up to so much scrutiny.

I don’t think people would have so many complaints about it. I agree. Just. Kind of internally, like all the things that we’ve talked about, it’s not as scary as it could be. It’s not as scary as the original was. It doesn’t have that same impact because of all these reasons that we’ve just described. But I enjoyed watching it.

I thought it was fun. I don’t think that… At its core, it was a bad movie. I thought it got corny at the end. There were a couple baffling things in the middle that we talked about. But, uh, I was on the edge of my seat during the whole exorcism scene, wondering where it was gonna go and how in the world they were gonna get out of this situation.

And then, you know, I had kind of a drag me to hell moment at the end, where I was like, oh shit, the demons win! And a good person dies! That hit me. Um, I thought it was appropriately bleak, and… And again, if we’re going to go back and compare it to the original, the demon wins in that too, you know? So, I mean, I thought it was in that way in keeping with the original in other ways, maybe our expectations are a little too high.

I don’t know. 

Heather: Well, and like, ultimately, like I said, I, I liked it. I enjoyed getting to go see it. It was fun to get to go Craig with you to the movies. I didn’t hate it. And I, and I do, I would say, go see it. You know, if you, if you like the exorcist, if you like these movies, go see it. There were just some things that.

I feel, uh, could have been more developed. Um, they, they, they introduced a lot of really interesting ideas and concepts that I just felt like weren’t flushed out very well, you know? Um, so yeah, I definitely go see it. Uh, but. That was just that’s just my thoughts. 

Todd: Well, it’s hell a lot better than the exorcist part two.

I’ll tell you that 

Craig: I enjoy that movie too. I know it’s terrible, but I still like it 

Todd: Got its moments Well, thank you again heather for joining us here on this episode Thank you listeners for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. We have Two more Halloween episodes to go.

There’s gonna be the two best this month yet. Nothing will beat this one though, because Heather was on here with us. So, uh, We’re gonna have to let you down slowly from here on out, but still gonna be fun. If you’ve seen the Exorcist Believer this season, you’ve managed to catch in the theaters like we have, drop us a note on any one of our channels.

X, as it’s now called Facebook, uh, Instagram. Also, if you want to join our patrons and help shape this show, uh, go to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast for the very, very low price of five bucks a month or 10, if you’re feeling generous, get access to all those goodies and all that conversation that happens behind the scenes until next time I’m Todd.

Craig: I’m Craig.

Heather: and I’m Heather!

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

How did we ever miss this one? We tackle a spooky ghost tale that just sits perfectly for the Halloween season. Not only does it center around Halloween night, but it’s one of those “kid horror” flicks that we have a serious soft spot for. Long requested by loyal listener and good friend, Heather, we’re excited to discuss this overlooked gem of a movie that we OURSELVES somehow never managed to catch until now.

The Lady In White (1988)

Episode 363, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Here we are on week two of our Halloween countdown, uh, looking for Halloween horror movies. Last week was just perfect. Uh, Gothic. Man, uh, you know, you pick a movie about… of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the story that sort of led to Bram Stoker’s Dracula that takes place in this crazy ass mansion has pretty much every horror movie cliche in there.

Yeah. That was a good way to kick it off. I applaud you for choosing that. Thank you. I enjoyed it. Yeah, it was fun to talk about. This week… What kind of happened upon this? I sent you a list of… Why propositions for the month, and you have yet to even respond to 

Craig: that list. I don’t know, I’m so indecisive, I can’t decide things. 

Todd: But normally we sort this stuff out, I don’t know what it is about this year, but normally we sort this stuff out pretty quickly. That’s true. Between the two of us. 

Craig: Anyway, yeah, this week we’re doing… 1988’s The Lady in White and it’s funny because I know that our friend Heather has requested this for years, but I think we’ve gotten, I think it’s been a request from other people at certain points in time too.

I have no idea why it took us this long to do it. Hmm. It’s bizarre to me, like I put this movie on, I’m like, you know, I pull up the IMDB page, I’m like, Oh, it’s Lucas Haas in the leading role. Like, I remember him. Uh huh. You know, when we were kids. Then I started looking at some of the other cast, and I’m like, I know all of these people, and I started the movie.

And I texted you, I’m like, I’m three minutes into this movie and I f ing love it. Like, I now have theories as to why maybe I’m not familiar with it. But in those first few minutes, I’m like, how have I not seen this? 

Todd: Right. Had you seen it? You know what’s funny is I had also not seen it. And I also can’t believe I haven’t seen it.

This was right, this should be right up there with the Monster Club and something wicked this way comes. Yeah. I mean. You know, it’s got the feels of all of those 80s, kid, neighborhood adventure type scary movies with heart and funny bits and… You know, ultimately kind of a family friendly ghost story is what this turns out to be, although it has some dark moments.

Oh my god, 

Craig: that’s why I said like, I, I kind of understand maybe why I didn’t see it because I feel like, I don’t know what the time, I feel like it’s, it’s a great portrait of the time, but today there’s some stuff in here that I feel like it would be difficult to air on. Television. Yeah, there’s just like casual use of the n word like up until that point up until that point I was like, oh my god, this is so cute.

Like how do I and then boom n word and I’m like what? No, okay, this is why I haven’t 

Todd: seen this movie up to that point I was thinking huh this This might be a good enough movie for me to show my son like I know then the n word comes and then somebody gets blasted in the face 

Craig: and then There’s a whole the whole mystery plot is around not just a child murderer But very specifically a child molester.

Yes 

Todd: obvious, 

Craig: I Feel like it’s so crazy that that’s In this movie that appears to be for children. I believe that this movie is for kids and I also believe that if I had seen this movie when I was a kid, it would have been one of my favorite movies ever. It’s got so many things in it that I just absolutely adore watching it from an adult’s perspective.

Like I’m giving it side eye every once in a while, like, but if I had seen it when I was a kid, I am.

Todd: I think a lot of the more disturbing elements of it be that, I mean, I saw some fairly shocking things on in movies as a kid. Heck, even kids movies back then would occasionally have things like that in it. I think most of, of the stuff that I kind of give the side eye right now as an adult probably would have got right over my head, just like those things did when I was a 

Craig: child.

Absolutely. I, you know, I have, uh, that’s, that’s kind of what I was trying to get at, like, the movies that we grew up with are different. than movies that are targeted at children today. I feel like the movies that we grew up with didn’t treat kids with kids gloves as much as movies do today. This movie’s got, like, jerkin off jokes in it.

It’s got all kinds of crazy shit that I’m like, this would never happen today. Child murder. Right, and molestation. But, you know, I even think about, I have… A friend, a colleague who is my age and we agree, like we, you know, we have the same childhood experience. We liked all the same things, grew up with the same bands.

Like, totally, totally in sync, but she cannot watch or, like, participate in any nostalgia for the Goonies because she doesn’t like the fat phobia and the way that disabilities are portrayed in the Their point of view. Right. Gosh, it was just such a different time. And, and, and the same thing is going on here.

Aside from the casual use of the n word, which I actually talked to my sister. My sister watched this movie because I was watching it. And we were talking about it, and she was talking about how she liked it, but she brought that up. That, like, the n word just pops up. It’s jarring. It’s, it’s jarring, and it’s just…

Like, it immediately disqualifi I was gonna tell her, Oh, you should watch this with your daughter, my niece. Um, cause they like the, you know, they like the same kind of stuff that I do. That’s not the only thing either. Yeah. I don’t remember if we have said this yet or not. I think I did Heather recommended this.

Yeah, right. When I was watching it, I was texting her too. I’m like, Oh, this is great. Thank you for recommending it. And she said, Yeah, it’s really nostalgic. It reminds me of to kill a mockingbird. Now, when I was texting her, I was only three minutes in. But now that I’ve seen the whole thing, there is like that whole, I feel like there’s a racial element.

There is this movie, 

Todd: and that is, it’s odd because it is not essential to the core story. There’s a lot in this movie that’s not essential to the core story, and it’s so chock full of that, that if you were to take out those bits, I think it would be a nice tight 90 minutes. It would have been maybe not so oddly received.

I don’t think this movie, well, it didn’t do well at the box office. It’s not well remembered, as far as I know. It kind of should be, because, like, we’ve just been talking about, you know, it’s pedigree. In a way, it’s so chock full of random stuff and little side plots and little diversions and things that aren’t really essential to the story that I think the writer and director are the same guy, and this is, um, Frank And producer.

Yeah, Frank LaLogia, and he went through a really interesting money raising process to, to make this movie by basically turning it into like a, a penny stocks thing, like creating a, a production company with his friend. And then had people all around the country, like, basically selling stock in this production company.

Uh, took like three years before they could finally get the money together. And then they were really, really tight with the budget. And it worked out well for them. That movie made, made some money for them. They definitely recouped their costs. But it was a bit of a box office bomb. I looked it up. Roger Ebert liked it.

He gave it, like, three stars and had a lot of really nice things to say about it. And nothing really that negative. But yeah, like, I think, as I was watching, I’m like, God, this movie is long. It’s long. Like, I’m not sure I would have had the patience for this as a kid, and I think why it feels so long is there’s just so much stuff in here that is central to setting up the time period.

And nostalgic little things that isn’t really essential to the 

Craig: plot. You’re absolutely right. 100%. I just want to out of the gate, say I liked it. Like I did. I liked this movie. Me too. Uh, I think it’s beautifully shot. Like the, the opening, it reminds me of the opening of something wicked. This way comes when we’ve talked about a bazillion times, stolen from it.

Oh, right. You know, it’s just shot for shot. Well, oh my God. And the voiceover. Willow Point Falls was just like any other small town. At least that’s 

Todd: the way it seemed to me. There’s even a guy out in front of his cigar store sweeping like with a cigar store Indian in the window like. Oh 

Craig: my god. But it’s like, universal backlot, small town America, and the leaves are falling, and oh, it’s so Halloween y, like there’s jack o lanterns all over the place, and like, just, I, I’m not even looking at my notes, but if I were, because I was taking so many notes, I’m like, okay, so here are the things.

that we have. Bike jumps over a creek, bridges over a river, every kid is in a Halloween costume, an old lady sprays Frank with a hose, there are stray dogs everywhere, nuns, Catholic school kids hitting Frank, and then the nun scares the dogs. Like, it is just the most, like, 1950s, 60s nostalgia. Yeah, that just slays me like and they were laying it on thick and I’m like I am in like I am so into this.

I’m 

Todd: not gonna have much critical bad bad critical things to say about this movie because I also loved it and I’m a sucker for this kind of movie. Yeah, I think we both are. So of course I was watching it and smiling the whole way through. I suppose somebody who’s coming into this first time and maybe from a different era or maybe just doesn’t have this degree of nostalgia for these kind of stories that we do.

I don’t know. Would probably say, this movie lays it on so thick, it’s almost embarrassing. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Loved it. I li I liked it too. There are moments in here where they take some tangents off just to be silly and goofy, and like, this is what kids do, and this is how kids play, and isn’t it cute and it’s charming, and this kid’s the goofy one, and this kid’s the mean one, and, you know, like there’s so much of that in here, that is s again, not at all really essential to the plot.

Characters who, Have very little to do with the story, who are just in there to do these little things. Yeah, I think pe I think there are people who might hear our podcast, who would go watch this movie after we’ve gushed over it. And would maybe be scratching our heads if they weren’t of the same mindset.

Craig: You’re right. Well, and I have no idea. I have no idea what the demographics of our audience is, but I would guess that maybe some of them are like people our age. And if you are somebody our age, and if you haven’t seen it, this movie is going to be just like an amazing nostalgia bomb, because there are so many people.

In it, like yes, Lucas Haas, like he was this cute, super cute kid actor because he has these ginormous eyes and ears and this, I’m pretty sure that this is his first movie and it’s hilarious, like in one of the opening scenes. The first scene, I think, that he speaks in, he screams at his brother. Oh, I think I may need you to put in that scene.

Because it’s like, What are you trying to do? Kill me! He’s screaming at the top of his lungs. It’s hilarious. His acting gets a little bit more calmed down through the rest of the movie. But then, his brother… Is named Gino in the movie. He’s played by a kid named Jason Presson. Who, I was so familiar to me.

I think that I remember him from The Explorers. With uh, I think River Phoenix was in that movie. And maybe… Was he in that? I’m pretty sure. The one where they like build a spaceship out of like garbage cans. Oh, I love that movie. 

Todd: We watched that like a billion times. Oh, it’s 

Craig: fantastic. But he, he’s been in lots of other stuff too.

Gremlins 2. Yeah. Yeah. So really enjoyed seeing him. He’s cute, super funny. There’s a Kind of bully named Donald. Like he’s kind of a bully, but he’s not like a super bad kid. I feel like he’s kind of, you know, friends with the main guy. Uh, but he was played by the same kid who was Josh’s best friend in big.

Yes. And he was also in Overboard. He was one of the sons of the man who kidnapped and manipulated a woman into marriage. Yes. Uh, in that movie. He 

Todd: was also in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. 

Craig: Oh, that’s right. He was Russ. Yeah. He was great. Oh God. He’s great. Great 80s actor. And he was, I said he was in Overboard.

With the woman who played Mona on… Yeah, who’s the boss. Who is also in this movie. And who plays the woman in white. Which, this is so weird because we haven’t even really gotten into talking into the plot, and the movie is called Lady in White. She’s barely… A part of the 

Todd: story. Yeah, and half the time it’s mostly her sister who’s not white haired at all.

Craig: No, and they should have called it, like, Ghost Girl. Because that’s a far more integral 

Todd: part of… A little girl in curls or something, yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. The lady in white just kind of shows up randomly every once in a while to be spooky. Another thing that I loved about this movie is that it reminded me very much of, like, after school specials.

Yes. That’s what it feels like in the shooting. Especially that shot where Lucas Haas is in his bed, like, dreaming or something, and then the woman in white is right outside his window, and the wind is always blowing, and her hair is… It felt very after school special to me, and I loved it. Those after school specials, 

Todd: I think another reason why this felt totally like that.

It also reminded me of It, because of the whole kid angle and the kind of like, all these different things that 

Craig: happen in town. It, and hold on, just real quick, it kind of felt like a TV movie because it felt like there were commercial breaks. Yes, they did. And it just kind 

Todd: of cramped, like those after school specials were either little kid adventures that were just light and fun, really serious, like, uh, you know, don’t do drugs.

My brother has AIDS kind of things. Yeah. Or like spooky ghost stories. Right. And this is like, has all of these things in it. I don’t remember 

Craig: if I ever saw it, but I’ve definitely seen the scene. There was like an after school special that I think Helen Hunt Started, and like, she smoked weed or something, and then freaked out and threw herself out of like a three story window and died.

Look it up on YouTube, it’s HILARIOUS. God. It’s so funny, but no, yeah, it does, this reminds me of that, but it’s also, it’s so cute! Yeah. Like, I, you guys, those of you who didn’t grow up with us in the 80s, I can’t explain it to you, but. Movies were different. Yeah. They just, like, I don’t know, there was just some magical, even this movie that ultimately is pretty silly, there are just some magical moments.

Even, I’m not gonna try to defend the acid, trippy Screensaver special effects, like… Ha, ha, ha, ha. Even though I enjoyed them, I’m not gonna try to defend it, but… It’s a low budget movie, yeah. You’ve got a kid who’s kind of a nerd. No, I love this kid. Like, the teacher, who I, uh, was also in a bazillion things in the 80s.

The teacher calls him up, she’s like, It’s Halloween! And they’re all in costumes, they’re like having a Halloween party. And she’s like, It’s Halloween! And now, Frank… is going to read us a story that he wrote and he reads the story. What is it? The beast that destroyed London, the beast that destroyed London.

And he tells this whole story about a sea monster that ate all the people and the bullies are like picking on him and being kind of hilarious. And then he finishes the story. But just when everyone had given up, thrown in the towel and really become depressed, a miracle occurred. The ground began to open up, and the monster who had at least a million tons sank into the huge hole eaten up by the only thing bigger than him the earth.

And the depressed citizens of London applauded and cheered. And there was nothing to be frightened about anymore. Unless the monster had a baby.

But that’s impossible. Or is it? And the teacher and the little girl that he has a crush on both gasp, like, 

Todd: Yeah, like the teacher and scared by this story. 

Craig: And then, it’s so cute! Uh, everybody else, it’s the end of the school day, everybody else leaves, the teacher’s sitting at her desk and the only people that don’t leave Our Frank and the little girl with braces who has a crush on him and she looks at him with a great big smile and says, Uh, I wish I was as weird as you.

And then she dances out of the room. I was dying. I like, this is my favorite movie.

So cute. So stinking cute. 

Todd: I thought this bit with this little girl being like having a crush on him would like go somewhere. I thought it would, you know, be a thread through the movie, but it just gets kind of dropped. It’s just for 

Craig: that scene. Nothing really goes anywhere and you can take me to task because I just listened to our last released episode where I complained and complained how things didn’t go anywhere.

And that is true of this movie too. And I don’t. 

Todd: Because this movie wasn’t made by a bunch of Italians in the 70s. Is that what it is? 

Craig: This movie, this movie is cute and engaging. So he gets bullied by those boys and they trick him into getting into the cloakroom. Oh my God, how cute is it that there’s a cloakroom in the classroom?

Yeah, it’s so cute. I desperately want a cloak room in my classroom. 

Todd: Remember Invaders from Mars? Had a similar little room in there. I felt like they shot in the same classroom. That’s how similar it all looked. Oh, 

Craig: it’s adorable. But they, they trick him into going in there after school and, uh, they lock him in.

That’s mean. And plus, it’s, it’s Halloween. And so not only are they locking him in there, but they’re depriving him of Halloween. I thought that was so shitty. Also, 

Todd: bullies in the 80s were way, way more cruel than 

Craig: they are now. Yeah, mean, mean, mean, mean. But he’s in there, and then a little ghost girl comes.

And, what, I don’t know, she’s just like, Hey, I’m a ghost 

Todd: girl. This stretches credulity a little bit, because ghost girl comes in, and, uh, he’s sitting up in the corner, he’s got his little vampire mascot. It’s a cute, it’s a cute costume, by the way. I love the mask. The Mask apparently, um, the director, uh, wrote, did a movie just before this, it was only, uh, his only other movie before this called See No Evil, which is on my list and I think we need to do.

But in that movie, they shot in a mansion, I believe, that used to belong to Bela Lugosi or had some connection to it, and I don’t know, somehow the main star in that movie was kind of vamping it up and, uh, He asked him to design a mask that gave the impression of Bela Lugosi without actually being him, and I thought that mask, it looked appropriately like a 1960 something Halloween mask.

It was very cool. 

Craig: Oh, yeah, I read that too, and that’s exactly what I got from it. Mm hmm. I knew exactly what it was going for, and I thought it was fantastic, and then the thing that I read was like, people just thought it was like a Richard Nixon mask. What? I think whoever wrote that must have been high on drugs, because I don’t know what they’re 

Todd: talking about.

You can’t always trust the trivia on IMDBs, because people can 

Craig: just Yeah, it definitely looks like a Dracula mask. If you don’t make the Bela Lugosi connection fine, but it definitely looks like a vampire mask and it’s great like it’s like a paper mache kind of homemade looking thing and I loved it. I thought it was great and this kid 

Todd: is into these things to like we see his bedroom later and he’s.

Again, another one of these kids from these movies, like Monster Squad or whatever, who just Right. Hey, Peppers is ha his room full of, uh, science fiction and horror 

Craig: stuff, but And he’s got comics and figurines, like, I love this kid. Yeah, 

Todd: he’s great. It’s cool, it paints a picture of him. It also has v nothing to do with the story either.

No. Like, usually these kids in the story, you know, people will say, Oh, you’re imagining things because that’s what you’re into, and it it doesn’t even go there. It’s kind 

Craig: of funny. No, no, this is a, it’s, it’s not a, well, I guess it is supernatural cause there’s ghosts, but it’s, it’s really, it’s a mystery.

Like he sees this girl and then he sees her violently assaulted. Oh my God. I was like, what is happening? The assailant is invisible throughout the entire movie. Until you find out who it is at the end. But when you see the, you see the assault and it is violent and he murders this little 

Todd: girl, chokes her out, I guess.

Yeah. And then picks her up 

Craig: and you don’t see this immediately. That’s all he sees in there. Alright, okay, so we’ll stay with that. And then… 

Todd: By the way. Yeah. Uh, he’s sitting up on the shelf by this window, and that’s, this is like a, a huge icon of the movie because it’s in, like, the poster and stuff like that.

That’s what I remember seeing on the shelf as a kid. And the school has a graveyard right behind it? 

Craig: Apparently, which is weird, but also in a haunted forest and God, 

Todd: don’t get me started on the forest, but straight out of Hansel and Gretel suddenly at every time of day, it reminded me of that company of wolves that Angela Lansbury movie we did, I feel like they shot it on the same set, but there it made sense here was just like, really, this town and fantasy land.

But, this graveyard, which I thought would be like a key story element because it’s spooky, and it’s made to look spooky, and it’s behind the school and stuff. Also has nothing to do with the book at all. No. Nothing. Ah. But might as well stick it in there. 

Craig: Oh, it looks good. I like it. So that’s it. So he sees that, and then…

Coincidentally. I’m not going by my notes at all, so I apologize if I’m jumping around, but Uh, it turns out this guy, some guy, like, you can’t see him, Comes in and starts pulling up the floor vent grate. Yes, and and this appears to be a real guy and there’s a what’s supposed to be a very tense scene where like there’s a rat Up on the shelves where the kid is hiding and the guy hears the rat and shines his flashlight on the rat but doesn’t see the kid which I’m not sure if I buy but then the rat crawls on the kid and the kid reacts and The guy sees him and grabs him and chokes him out.

Yeah, but then it goes to black And the next thing that, wait, is that when he said he’d die? Yeah. That was the 

Todd: first trippy part, right? He has the visions. I liked this part of the movie actually, but I’ve got to say. What a coincidence, right? I guess it’s Halloween night, so that’s why the ghost appeared.

No, 

Craig: the ghost appears every night. 

Todd: So if you’re not locked in the cloakroom overnight, you’re just not gonna see 

Craig: it. Right, but don’t you remember? The teacher says they’re replacing the furnace over the weekend. Yes, I do remember that. And it was so like, when she said it, I’m like, well obviously that’s important, like why would you say that?

So apparently, somebody killed this girl in this room, and now that they’re replacing the furnace, what, 11 years later? He’s afraid that maybe there’s some evidence in there. Are you kidding me? That’s so dumb. It’s fine. It sounds Did you read Encyclopedia Brown when you were a kid?

That’s what it makes me think of. Like, clues. And so, and so, after he gets choked out, eventually he goes back and he pulls up the vent and he finds a hair clip and a, a class ring. Like it’s so encyclopedia brown, like clues, clues, clues. 

Todd: I looked at it when I was seeing, I was watching this, I was like. And, and especially as the clues get put together, I realized this is going to have to be one of these mystery movies where by the end of it, once the killer’s found out, he just kind of like reveals himself to everybody because there’s no way this kid is building a case against him that he could take to the cops and hold up in a court of law.

Craig: That’s crazy. The weird subplot is that everybody just assumes. That it’s the janitor of the school who did it. And, and it’s not only Lucas Haas that has been… Assaulted Like over the past seven years or ten years. I don’t know like 11 kids have been killed Most of them were from the city that they can see from their town.

Yeah, what city was 

Todd: that supposed to be? I don’t know that gets dropped but that’s oh, it was like a horrible Matt painting. Honestly, 

Craig: I love this Yeah, it didn’t matter, but most of the kids were from the city except for the first one who was a girl from their town and they just assume that the janitor did it because he’s black.

Todd: Like, yes, because 

Craig: racism, I mean, they even talk about that. Like, I feel like it’s very heavy handed because, um, Lucas Haas’s dad. Who’s the dad from dream little dream? one of the great Cory movies of the 90s, but even the dad is like Why do we just automatically assume he did it like almost 

Todd: everyone is saying that even though Yeah, even the 

Craig: cop the janitor’s motive is that he got drunk and passed out like that’s Legit.

I mean, I guess I mean he was on He was on the premises, I guess, but they really… They don’t have any evidence. Well, even the sheriff. I feel like the sheriff goes to the dad at some point. Yes. I didn’t understand that scene. I didn’t understand what the sheriff was trying to do. Was the, was the sheriff trying to get the dad to in some way protest it?

Fuck yeah. All I’m saying is… Unless Frankie can verify that it wasn’t Williams that attacked him. Come on, Ray. You’ve talked to Frankie. He told you it was too dark to tell. 

Todd: They’re gonna put Harold Williams away, I guarantee it. Where’s that proof? He was in the building, Al. What the hell was he doing there in the middle of the night?

He got drunk and passed out. His goddamn prints were all over that 

Craig: cloakroom. And all over the rest of the school. He works there, for Christ’s sakes. He’s the janitor. I’m telling you, that doesn’t matter. This case has been making monkeys out of all of us for the past 10 years. Harold Williams is a perfect scapegoat.

He’s black. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell if he was saying that, like, Oh, that’s a good thing, or, oh, this is an injustice. I couldn’t tell what he was saying. At 

Todd: first, I thought he was saying it, that this is a good thing. But then as the movie went on, and I saw his whole attitude toward this whole thing, he seemed as skeptical as everybody else.

Yet here he is in a position to do something about it, but he doesn’t, which kind of made me think, is this just a very overly simplistic, kind of, to kill a mockingbird type situation, where this movie’s trying to be too nice, and trying to make us believe that all of these characters that we see, none of them are racist, and all of them are very uncomfortable about this.

It’s just that it was a different time, and they were sort of… powerless and kind of had to go along with the faceless people who are not seen and mentioned in this movie that want to just take the black guy down. 

Craig: I, yeah, and I think that if we’re going to In any way kind of address the whole movie.

We’re just gonna have to tackle one thing at a time So I think we should just like yeah, this uh, this guy It’s a thing like he’s accused of all of these murders Well, and then his wife and kids are suffering too because some lady like calls them out in church and this poor wife, you know, passes out and has to be carried out of church.

But then ultimately the grand jury decides that there’s not enough evidence to Indict this guy so he’s released and we see him I so knew where this was going and I was so angry I was so angry and I I wanted the movie to defy my expectations because yeah Exactly where it was going so he comes out and he talks to the press and he’s like I’m just so happy to be able to go home You know there they’re gonna take me to the jail so I can get my stuff and then they’re gonna take me home and his Wife and kids are there and he gets into the back of a police car and his wife is on one side side and the woman who confronted the wife in church tells her husband, I want to go apologize to him, which she does.

She goes to the other side of the car and says, I’m sorry for all you’ve been through. And then she pulls out a gun and blows his head off. Not only Does she shoot him, but because the wife is Right behind him on the other side of the car. She gets shot, too Yeah, and she’s just in shock and then you never see them again Like yeah, I feel like there’s a point there make the director there because the writer the director the producer They’re all the same person.

This person is making a point But then it just it’s just dropped. Yeah, there’s no more to 

Todd: it I I really feel like this is like just a little bit of overzealous world building It’s sort of like this movie is supposed to be this, you know Dandelion wine like the magical summer of 1967 or whatever, you know in my youth and here are all the things that happened during there But it does therefore kind of lose focus on the story because of it Because, ultimately, although, I mean, it’s a very tenuously connected to the story, and like you said, it’s just dropped.

That’s frustrating. So, yeah, I mean, again, I’ll fault it for that, and this is another reason why I think by the end of it I felt like, Boy, the movie felt a little long, and that’s probably why, as there were things like this in there. That didn’t really need to be. That was like, okay, well that was an interesting diversion.

But what about the ghost and what’s gonna happen to the kid? Well, we haven’t even 

Craig: talked about that, right? Like, that’s, that’s the whole story. Like, there’s this ghost girl. Like, she just keeps showing up. And she keeps saying, like, My mommy is lost. Help me find her. I, I, I say it in that annoying voice only because that happens multiple times.

It’s not annoying. It was kind of cute. And like… It’s the 

Todd: cute child ghost thing that appears to the other kid. Practically becomes a playmate, except when she suddenly stops talking to him in random places and starts reenacting the events of that night, which, like I said, you said, right, kind of happens every night.

Yeah, 

Craig: and eventually, after the kid gets attacked, this, we may be, I may be going back a little bit, but this is something that I definitely wanted to talk about, after the kid gets attacked in the hospital and they bring him home, To recuperate. By the way, there are a grandma and grandpa couple. Oh my god.

Who are hilarious. Hilarious. Like there’s a running joke that the grandpa smokes, but the grandma doesn’t like it. And so she’s always like foiling his attempts to smoke and stuff. And my favorite one was one night where they were just sitting at dinner and somebody said, where’s grandpa? And she says, he’s drowning himself because I hid his cigarettes.

And then it comes 

Todd: him with his head submerged in the bathtub. . I thought 

Craig: that was so funny. I was dying laughing. You say 

Todd: it’s funny, I think some people would say it’s kind of corny and a little over. Oh, it’s super 

Craig: corny over. I loved it. Oh, it’s ridiculous. It’s so weird. It’s ridiculous. It’s 

Todd: ridiculous, and it’s very much, movies of this time had this kind of thing in there all the time.

I would say, look, I agree with you, I still love this movie, but I thought this whole bit, this running gag, was not very well played. I thought it was a little stilted. I don’t know if it was overacting, or just stereotypical 

Craig: immigrant kind of like… Oh, yeah. It was, for 

Todd: sure. I kind of found it a little 

Craig: cringey.

Oh, it was over the top, silly, stupid, intentionally, and I thought that was hilarious. And 80s movies were like that, like you just said, and I know that I don’t have to tell you that. But, okay, so after the kid is attacked, then like, he’s recovering at home, he’s got like a neck brace and stuff, I don’t know, whatever.

But Phil? And Tony, come to visit him. Who are these men? Now, is, who are they? Who are they? And are they a couple? I know, right? 

Todd: I was asking myself that the 

Craig: whole time. I 

Todd: guess they’re childhood friends. Of the dad? Well, one of them is Phil. I mean, 

Craig: we find out Phil 

Todd: is. Phil is. And it seems, it’s never explicitly stated.

But is Tony his 

Craig: husband? I know, right? Yeah. In my world, he is, Phil. It’s… Yeah. Uncle Phil and Tony. Yeah, 

Todd: I have an Uncle Bill and Uncle Scott, so I completely understand. 

Craig: Super nice, and uh, They visit him and bring him a bow, as in a bow and arrow. All right. So then what? So then, then they kind of like, uh, the ghost girl comes to Frank’s room.

Frank is 

Todd: Lucas Haas. I’m sorry, real quick. Since you brought up Phil and Tony, and since we’re probably going to go over on this episode anyway, can you talk to me a little bit about what his dad does? What Lucas… Oh, 

Craig: he’s an iron worker. I love that. And so Phil works there 

Todd: too, right? Yeah, I think so.

Craig: Working 

Todd: on the… Gate To the cemetery. To the cemetery. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. , that, 

Todd: that we see at the wraparound story. We didn’t even mention the wraparound story. No. It, it doesn’t wrap 

Craig: around. It, it like it’s a book? No, it’s just introductory. And that’s, that’s the director, right? Oh, is it? Doesn’t the, oh, I am pretty sure Frank Lu.

Plays the adult Frank. 

Todd: Oh, interesting. It’s so funny because by the end of the movie, I was like, wait, why did we not 

Craig: come back to the wraparound? Well, why did this just end here? I know it’s weird. So the ghost girl just shows up a lot. I don’t. She shows up, she types on his typewriter, but we never see what she types, like, I thought that would surely be something.

Todd: Yeah, she does a lot of ghostly things, that you just kind of, like, I don’t know, there’s like a contractual obligation, I think, if you’re doing a ghost girl story, that all these things kind of have to be in there, even if they don’t make sense. 

Craig: And the woman in white… She starts showing up, I guess, and…

Because of the 

Todd: creepy old house. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah. 

Todd: The kids go to this, like, creepy house, and I had no idea why they were there. Maybe I missed a line of dialogue or something. And then I realized, is this just the neighborhood creepy house? 

Craig: Frank is just hanging out. This part of the movie doesn’t make any sense, because there’s a house, like, on his street.

Where he says the creepy old woman lives and we look at that house for a second And we see her like looking out the window But then we never see that house again, correct? And then they Uh, are always talking about this cottage by the cliffs. And like, that’s the creepy house, and then it’s supposed to be abandoned, but it’s clean and fully furnished.

And that, from that point forward, that’s where we keep seeing. Amanda, the woman in white. Yeah, I did not get that at all. So I don’t even know why they bothered to introduce that other house. I think that the suggestion is that’s where she lives and this other house was the house, as it ultimately turns out Oh my god.

She’s like a caretaker. No, I think it was either her daughter or her sister. Her sister. Who was the mom. Yes. 

Todd: Of this, of this girl. Of 

Craig: the ghost girl. Uh huh. And there’s the ghost girl! Ha ha ha ha! I will beat myself up if I don’t tell this story, because I don’t have a lot of cool stories from my life. But, Amanda is played by Kathryn Helmond, who is Mona.

On Who’s the Boss, who was, by far and away, the best character on that show. Oh, yeah. She was like the slutty grandma, and she was fantastic. I saw her in a live production, a dinner theater production of, uh, Noises Off. 

Todd: No way! 

Craig: Yeah, in St. Louis, Missouri, when I was in high school. My high school drama club took a road trip in to see Noises Off.

A dinner theater. I love it. And, and we got there. Of course, you know, this is before the internet. Well, the internet existed, but we didn’t have it yet. Um, so I had no idea. So I got there and I opened the playbill and I saw that she was in it. And I was so starstruck. Like, it was like a moment in my life.

Um, I am going to see Mona from Who’s the Boss in a play. 

Todd: Oh my gosh. How was she? Oh, 

Craig: she was fantastic. Oh, she was great. 

Todd: She 2019. Just before, just missed out on all the COVID excitement. Really? 

Craig: Oh my goodness. She must have been a hundred years 

Todd: old. Yeah, she was born in 1929. And I mean, always good.

Honestly, I thought also, look, this movie is full of good acting. Uh, there’s some cringy weird acting, but, you know, I have no, really no real complaints about the acting in the movie, except sometimes it’s a little over the top. Her scenes, especially when she kind of goes in and we get the whole backstory, fantastic.

Yeah. Fantastic 

Craig: acting. I kind of wish that she had more to do, cause she just kind of creeps around, like floats around, with arms outstretched, and it’s great, it’s so, like, it’s, it’s old school ghost story. Yeah. For kids. Yeah. You know, spooky. She’s, she’s pale. She’s gaunt. She seemingly kind of floats around with her arms outstretched.

She’s got this long, wispy hair, a high hairline. She’s kind of got a bride of Frankenstein or bride of Dracula thing going on. Um, but it’s great. It’s, it’s spooky. Not in a Yeah. Shit your pants scary way, but just in a spooky way. Spooky ghost 

Todd: way, yeah. It’s sort of a, if you’re not listening, you’re probably going to miss it moment where somebody happens to mention.

That there was a woman who committed suicide there, threw herself off the cliff, because her daughter was murdered. 

Craig: Right. And that’s it. There’s no sense in skirting around it. That’s what happens. We see it happen. Jesus. At some point, Gino, who’s the brother, also sees the ghost. He and Frank… Follow it, cause Frank’s like, she, it’s almost 10 o’clock, that’s what time it was when she gets killed in the tower.

And so they, they go there, and she’s already been… killed again, and her invisible assailant is, uh, carrying her away. Frank’s like, he’s taking her to the cliffs, and Frank runs after her, and Geno conveniently, like, steps on some glass, so he can’t fall or whatever, but Frank sees this invisible assailant.

This was horrifying, too! This was terrible. Like, as, as though it weren’t enough that he had… violently murdered her? As it turns out, she wasn’t dead. So, she wakes up and is horrified to find herself being thrown off a cliff and screams for her mother before he throws her? 

Todd: Off the cliff. I love the balls of this movie.

I absolutely love the 

Craig: balls. It does not pull punches. 

Todd: I sometimes, and I think we’ve talked about this before, lose so much respect for a horror movie that comes right up to the point where you think they’re going to kill a kid and then it backs away and doesn’t really do it. And you know. Of course, nobody wants to see a kid die, but that’s like, cross that taboo every once in a while, right?

Like, get some balls. And this movie, it was the last movie that I thought was gonna cross this taboo. 

Craig: Because it’s for kids, like, it’s a clearly a movie for children. 

Todd: If bad enough, a kid already died, but now we see this kid being held over a cliff, waking up, oh, she’s not dead, screams for her mom and then plummets to her death.

Craig: Oh my god. It’s horrible. And then, and then the mother runs out and she’s like in a, like a pristine white gown and like the wind is flowing. She 

Todd: already looks like a ghost. She, she, she dressed properly for the afterlife, uh, that, that much is true. 

Craig: Right. And she looks down and sees her daughter’s mangled body.

Swept away by the waves. Oh my god. Jesus. So she sees that and so then she raises her arms and her billowing gown makes her look like an angel which the ghost girl has already like shown an angel ornament to the boy like help me find my mother or whatever and like an angel she like throws herself off the cliff.

Yep. Supposedly, that’s how she died. But, the central mystery is who is the child molester killer? What’s his but? Frank found all that evidence. First of all, when he went into the abandoned cottage that is perfectly clean and fully furnished, Uh, he obviously found Ghost Girl’s bedroom, and On her bureau was a jewelry box that had like three sets of hair clips, but one hair clip was missing and it was the one that he found.

I know, this is 

Todd: like a point and click adventure game at this point. Yeah, right, right. 

Craig: So he just puts it back and then maybe he has a vision, I don’t know, whatever. But the other thing that he found was… It’s like a class ring and he dropped it in his room and his brother found it. And then later, the kid’s like, Oh, I have some evidence.

And he tries to show it to his brother and he’s like, Oh, I. I must have lost it. But the brother doesn’t say anything. That was weird to me, like, why are we keeping secrets? It didn’t make sense. Because ultimately, ultimately, Geno does his own investigating. He gets in his dad’s trunk. Which he’s not supposed to.

Does his dad have porn in there? 

Todd: I know, his dad is so upset when he finds out he was in his trunk. He’s like, I told you there’s nothing in there that concerns you. Jesus. Honestly, after that response. I had a moment in my head where I thought they’re not setting up the dad to be the killer, are they?

Because I was pretty sure I had this thing figured out about 10 minutes into the movie and I wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t, 

Craig: no, it wasn’t 10 minutes, there was a scene, there’s a scene where… Uh, Frank is at the factory, and he’s like eavesdropping. No, that’s toward the end. But yeah, uh huh. You figured it out before that?

I didn’t figure it out before that. 

Todd: Dude, he was the only You know how it works with movies, it’s gonna be the guy who has no other reason to be in this movie. And, well, it wasn’t the black guy because we knew he was the setup. This friend, this family friend who just comes over every now and then and plays with these guys, I was like, Why are we seeing him?

Why is he every now and then, you know, chumming up with Frank? Of course it’s him! 

Craig: I didn’t figure it out until, I just thought they were the friendly gay uncles, until he comes up behind him, like, uh, Frank is like eavesdropping on his dad and somebody else, I don’t even remember what those people are talking about, but Uncle Phil, or whatever.

And apparently, like, apparently, there’s a, there’s a really weird scene where Phil and the dad have a heart. To heart on the porch and like cry, 

Todd: you 

Craig: know, when we were kids, nothing frightened me more. The thought of losing my parents, then I watched it 

Todd: happen to you. Both 

Craig: of them within a year.

Todd: If it hadn’t been for your mother and father, I don’t know what I would have done. Took a lot of 

Craig: strength to deal with a loss like that stuff. A lot of mixed emotions. But, Cuesta a la vita. Eventually you grow up. You 

Todd: grow out of 

Craig: it. I used to think fear was something you grow out of, like, uh, Being afraid of the dark.

But now with Miriam gone, I’m more fearful than ever.

You know, Philly, the thing that scares me the most is the thought of 

Todd: losing one of my 

Craig: kids. So these guys are tight. They’re like, like brothers. Anyway, he ends up being behind that kid on the stairwell and the kid turns around and it’s kind of a creepy shot of him. And I have in my notes is Phil’s a killer.

And then, okay, so the brother Gino has the ring and Fortunately, for us viewers, the rings have initials inscribed in them. Um, and it, like, he compares the found ring to his dad’s ring, and they’re the same, they’re from the same year. So he gets out his dad’s yearbook, and he looks it up, and he finds his dad in the yearbook, and then he looks up the other initials.

Um, and even though the first initial isn’t… P. Apparently, Phil is this guy’s middle name, um, and he finds him. And then, obviously, the brother knows. And, ultimately, we find out that the brother alerts everyone, and the dad knows, and the police know. But, Frank doesn’t know. And he’s, he’s out shooting arrows with Uncle Phil, and they’re having a great time, and it’s so much fun.

And then, Frank gets in the car, and Uncle Phil starts. Whistling that song just before that though Uncle Phil’s like, let’s shoot Oh, that molesty part? 

Todd: Let’s shoot one more arrow, and he gets down next to him, cheek to cheek, and it’s like, alright, now hold it steady, and then he kind of looks over at him, and he’s got his cheek, he kind of rubs it up against him a little more, takes a breath in Oh my god.

God, that was creepy 

Craig: as hell. Oh, it was so, I have in my notes, super molesty vibes. Yeah. And part of it, like, the acting was good. Like, the guy who played Phil was giving me those gross vibes. But a big part of it was just the camera work. It was a tight close 

Todd: up. Yeah, it was very intimate. 

Craig: Of the, right, of their faces pressed together.

Ugh. Yeah, big molester vibes. But then he whistles and sings, That’s right, have you ever seen a dream walking? I’ve heard that song before, I don’t remember where. I think I’ve heard it in a movie. I’ve heard it in a movie 

Todd: before. It’s a song, I don’t think we mentioned it, but it’s a song that the little girl ghost keeps, keeps singing and saying that it’s her favorite song.

Craig: Well, and when she’s attacked the first time, she says to the assailant, I know what your favorite song is because you sing it all the time. Random. So obviously that’s gonna be a big deal. And so now Phil sees it and I loved this scene in my notes. I have Frank knows and Phil knows he knows.

And then, and then I, the next thing Frank locks himself in the car, Phil f ing loses it. He turns into A madman. Yeah. 

Todd: Like, it is crazy. I loved this sequence. This sequence was tense, well shot. Like the whole movie is very well shot, honestly. This sequence is really tense. I didn’t think he was going to get out of that car, but he does.

He gets out of the car and immediately runs into the spooky old woods. 

Craig: Right. And, and, but when he’s in the car, Frank’s like, just, just, oh God, I don’t know. He’s like, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you. Uh, it’s very scary because this is, you know, kind of legit upsetting. This is basically this kid’s uncle.

Mm hmm. Like somebody that he loves and trusts. 

Todd: Grew up with, yeah. Who does things for him and takes him places. 

Craig: Yeah. And you also, or at least I did, got the impression that Phil… Really loves this kid too, like because when he, when he attacked him, he says this, you know, when we were in the cloak room, I didn’t know it was you because you had your mask on.

And that’s true. Uh, he, he didn’t know, uh, that it was him. And I don’t think that he wants to hurt this kid. When I, uh, was looking at, you know, stuff about this movie. I, I scrolled down on IMDB to the comments and the first one, you know, that popped up gave a pretty good review of the movie, but they said that their only complaint about it was that the killer’s motives are never even discussed, really.

Except for that, when they think it’s the janitor, Phil and the dad talk about that and isn’t it Phil who says something like These guys don’t need a motive. They’re just sick Yeah. Doesn’t he say something like that? He does. You’re right. Mm hmm. So I guess that’s enough of a motive. I mean, and I guess that that’s true to life.

Like, you don’t always know. Yeah. What happened, what people do behind closed doors. The, the people who seem the most normal and… You know, the, the 

Todd: psychotic people are really good at manipulating folks to get this, you know, it kind of comes with that personality, right? So, of course, they’re also really good at…

At, uh, at being trusted and gaining people’s trust, you know, in all aspects of their life. So they always, it’s always that guy, Oh, God, I, I, everybody trusts him. Everybody thinks he’s great. Well, yeah, that’s what allows him that, that’s his tool. Right. You know, that gets the trust of these kids to murder them, or to lock them in his basement, you know, for 20 years and whatever.

All these kinds of things that you find 

Craig: in the news. well, that’s like, it was upsetting. It was upsetting. Like, because he chases him into the creepy woods and there’s like a confrontation in the woods where he’s trying to convince them, you know, like, just give me the ring. Nobody has to know. And like, your dad can’t know.

And then like, he starts crying like, Oh, 

Todd: his dad. Yeah. He’s like, uh, really upset about, uh, at this point, it sets us up for the end of the movie anyway, where 

Craig: he’s talking Well, he’s losing everything, eh, it’s, you can’t sympathize with a child molester slash murderer, but I understand. There’s this shameful thing in his life and now it’s, his world is crumbling around him.

I understand why he feels that way. And 

Todd: he tells him he could never look his dad in the eye. It’s already been set up how close friends they are. He says, I could never look at your father in the eye, you know, and talk about this or admit what I’ve done or anything like that. So, uh, the kid gets out. Does he put the car in gear?

I don’t remember. 

Craig: Somehow he gets out. The weird thing, the weird thing about that scene to me was it, like, night fell in 30 seconds. Yeah? It was really kind of a weird sequence. And he chases him to the cottage, and he chases him around the cottage, and he’s throttling him like he’s going to kill him. But the whole time he’s saying, just tell me and what you know, and we don’t have to tell anybody.

And then the w the lady in white hits him over the head with a brick. This last part was Yeah. I find it I find it funny. Yeah. Not in not in that I didn’t like it, but it is humorous. Like, the whole house then Okay, so he wakes up in Ghost girl’s bed in this fully furnished and clean abandoned cottage.

Amanda is playing the piano, which we’ve been told before that she used to teach kids piano. And then she like creeps over to him, and she’s like, don’t worry. And she tells the whole story, like, that the woman was my sister, and… When her daughter was killed, she couldn’t handle it, and she just killed herself.

And I wanted to kill myself, and I tried, and that’s why they put me away, but now I’m back, blah, blah, blah. Her acting was 

Todd: great in this. I really, I really liked the acting. This is what I was talking about earlier. I enjoyed 

Craig: it. I don’t know if I would say it was amazing acting, but I really enjoyed it. 

Todd: I would say it’s amazing.

It 

Craig: was, it was fun. And ghosty. I, I’m not saying that it was in any way bad, I’m just saying I don’t know how much this actress really had to put into it, like, it’s just kind of ghostly, but she’s great, I liked it too. How beautiful she was. And how she loved her little girl. She lived and died for her.

I wanted to die too, but they wouldn’t let me. What is the good of living when all that you love is gone?

Even in death, she couldn’t rest. I know. I see her roaming the cliffs at night, searching for her little girl. Calling out her name. Melissa. Lucas Haas is weeping. I’m not sure. I’m not exactly sure why. Yeah, he’s just laying there 

Todd: weeping. He’s also surrounded by about a million candles. Yeah. 

Craig: And she says, don’t worry, I killed that guy.

And then it is a very ghostly shot from his perspective where it’s just her face right in his face and she’s kind of pulling away above him. And I, again, I knew it was coming. You see Phil come up behind her and he starts strangling her. Like she just starts choking even before you see him. She starts choking and then she’s fighting him.

And then. They knock over candles and the house catches on fire, and he violently beats her to death? 

Todd: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Oh 

Craig: boy. Uh, one way or another, like when the movie was over, because more happens, when the movie was over I was like, so Amanda’s dead, right? Cause the house burns down. It’s true. 

Todd: We don’t get to see her ghost float away, Abilie.

Let’s just put it that way. 

Craig: No, the others we do. He, uh, he violently beats Amanda to death and then he struggles with the kid in. The house that is engulfed in flames. They end up outside and he takes him to the cliff like he’s gonna throw him off. Oh god. Ah! Ah! So, I watched this yesterday after having just come home from a one year old’s birthday party.

Oh. And I was, uh, talking to… I don’t know what you call your cousin’s wife. My in law, I don’t know, my cousin in law. Your cousin in law. Yeah. I was talking to my cousin’s wife and she was talking about how her kid, her, her youngest is, who’s still a baby, gives her monkey hugs. And that’s when, that’s when he wraps his arms and legs around and just won’t let go.

Lucas and just won’t let go, and the guy’s trying to, like, pry him off.

Oh, and I don’t remember. I don’t know. Somehow Lucas Haas kind of falls off the cliff and he’s hanging on to something and then like Phil is like kind of going to help him up, but doesn’t. 

Todd: I don’t know. I’m not, I don’t remember how all that went down. Cause then by now, like the rest of the police and everybody’s show up with the father and the, and the kid, they all show up, but they all stand far away and watch all this go down.

Craig: Yeah! It’s so weird. Like, what? And, and like, does the mom ghost, like, she comes down from heaven in a bolt of 

Todd: lightning. And startles Phil, uh, which causes him to fall off the it.

Yeah, literally. Oh God. That, that was hilarious. And 

Craig: so then he falls off and then like, like there’s a good full five minutes of people hanging off the cliff. Oh God. And, and so like, like the kid is hanging off the cliff and then he gets up and then Phil is hanging off the cliff and then it seems like he falls, but he didn’t really fall.

And then like the dad tries to save him. But looking in the dad’s eyes, he just can’t. Like, nope. Can’t do it. Well gonna have to I have to die. Yeah. And, and so he, lets go then. So then he falls off the cliff and then the mother, the ghost mom and the ghost daughter are 

Todd: reunited. Oh my God. And then . 

Craig: Heather.

Heather. I was texting Heather and she’s like, you have to tell me what you think when it’s over. ’cause I usually cry at the end. And then she texted me again later and she’s like, I just rewatched it and I didn’t cry. I blame it on pregnancy. The last time I watched it, I was pregnant.

Todd: Could it have had something to do with the special effects being a little distracting? Oh, they’re terrible. It looks like a big metal cage or something comes, it comes over them and like. In some sort of like, Star Wars beam me up moment, they shoot off into the sky. They might as well have like, zoomed across the sky in a heart shaped pattern.

That’s kind of what it, the level of effects and corniness of everything. They, they do a 

Craig: little curlicue up there, before they shoot off into heaven. 

Todd: I also love how there were those blue screen shots of those, of the people falling into the water, that… are so unconvincing that Phil’s death was 

Craig: HILARIOUS.

He was clearly laying on a floor, just flailing his arms. And they superimposed that badly. Over some water. It was huh. And then that’s, and then that’s what I have. And then like it’s snowing on the cottage that is engulfed in flames and that’s just it. Like that’s where I have in my notes. So Amanda’s dead.

I, I guess, right? Like, which is fine because she wanted to be dead, but it would have been nice if they had let her ghost fly off with them too. 

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. They need another bolt of lighting or something to come down to make that happen, I suppose. I 

Craig: enjoyed this movie. It was fun. I, like, it was two hours long, and that is too long of a movie for me, but…

I enjoyed it. There was good stuff going on. There was some problematic and just outright curious stuff going on. Like, what? There was some weird shit. We didn’t even really talk about his acid trip when he dies. That was insane. Insane. But… Like, there’s some great nostalgic actors in here. I think it’s beautifully shot.

Aside from those weird special effects, like, uh, I already talked about the autumn. It also goes through Christmas, and it was like, it felt like Christmas in my house. Like, it was great. It was fantastic. So, I, I think there’s a lot going for it. 

Todd: No, I agree with you. It’s kind of a jumbled mess of a movie in, in, in all the fun, right?

Ways. Honestly, it doesn’t probably stand the test of time for modern audience, but I think that’s why we like it is because it’s kind of checks all the boxes or any special effects, childhood, neighborhood adventure, you know, kids 

Craig: writing. Bikes. Oh yeah. I never ever see kids riding bikes and it makes me so sad.

Some of the greatest adventures of my childhood were just riding bikes somewhere and just getting into mischief. Yeah, it makes me sad that kids don’t get that. 

Todd: That was going through my head the whole time we were watching that, that I just said to Liz, cause she was watching with me, I said, You know what?

When we were, like, that age, like, a bike was freedom. Yeah, you could go anywhere! It’s like a 16 year old getting a car, you know, it’s the younger kid version of that. Suddenly you can go everywhere, and your parents let you. Yeah. You know, like, you could just go everywhere, it was just, you got in your own little adventures, that’s really…

Kind of like maybe why we’re so nostalgic for it, you know, is because it brings back those actual memories that we have. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I, I try, I try not to be that guy who gets so wound up in nostalgia because I’m sure kids are having their own great experiences today that I just don’t understand.

You know, like when they are our age, they’ll talk about things the way that we’re talking about this, but it does. It makes me sad because I just have such amazing memories of riding all over town with my friends and my cousins and getting into trouble, like, you know, like doing stuff that we weren’t supposed to do.

Riding to the, literally riding to the video store at 12, 13 years old and renting R rated movies and taking them home and staying up all night watching these. Terrible horror movies. It’s kind of the basis of my whole identity. I suppose that’s why I’m nostalgic about it. 

Todd: I think if you’re like us, if everything that we’re saying resonates with you, you’re going to like all this movie, this movie as much as we do.

Despite admittedly all of its problematic and head scratching moments. Man, we’re two for two for Halloween movies this time. I can’t wait to see what we come up with for the next two weeks. Presumably because I’d like to prepare. So we better figure this out soon. We will have figured it out though by the time you listen to this podcast.

And by the way, thank you for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it, please let other people know about it. There’s no more perfect time of year to introduce people to our podcast. Then October, when we are the giddiest and doing, you know, presumably some of the most fun and lovely movies that we’re gonna do all year, so.

Also, please consider supporting the podcast, get behind the scenes with our Patreon. Patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, just five bucks a month, or ten if you’re feeling particularly generous. Gets you access to a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff, minisodes, an interview with the two of us, our complete unedited phone call, which we’re good friends and if you want to, uh, eavesdrop on our conversations, become a member.

Craig: I like the unedited ones because they get to hear, like, the stupid tangents that I go off on. Ha ha ha ha ha. I, like, I’m such a dork.

Todd: That you are. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

The first of our Halloween-inspired films for October takes us to the literary roots of both Frankenstein AND Dracula in this bonkers Ken Russell ride with an all-star cast.

We could’ve just as easily chosen Gothic for our Julian Sands tribute episode, as he puts on an incredibly bold and melodramatic performance, along with some opther stellar and emotional acting by Gabriel Byrne, Natasha Richardson, and Timothy Spall. This is a dramatization of the historically true party night between Lord Byron, the Shelley’s and others which inspired Mary to come up with the story for Frankenstein. Truly a movie to be experienced!

Gothic (1986)

Episode

Craig: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig. 

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: And I am introducing the movie this week because I picked it. This week we are doing, we’re doing 1986’s Gothic. The reason that I picked this is because… For the first time in my 20 year career as an English teacher, I am teaching Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

I started working on it, preparing it for my class and stuff, and I got so into it, like, I am just consuming everything Mary Shelley and everything Frankenstein I can, because I’m so into it. And I remembered this movie, and I knew what it was about. I knew that this movie was about the night that Mary Shelley conceived the idea for Frankenstein, and I’ll talk more about that in a minute, but for whatever reason…

I don’t think that I had seen it, but now I’m not sure. Looking, having watched it again, I, I think maybe I’ve seen it, but Really? If that’s the case, it shocks me that I don’t remember it, because this movie is crazy. Yeah, 

Todd: this movie is batshit crazy. And, I remember this movie very well, because the cover art.

Of the poster, which then therefore became the VHS art on the shelves of our local blockbuster. It’s very clear. It’s this demon kind of hunching over this woman who’s laying over this thing. And immediately, you know, the 16 year old Todd is not interested in this movie. 

Craig: I think that, yeah. I think it was the same for me.

Yeah. 

Todd: He’s way more interested in the Slumber Party Massacre. Half naked bucks and babes between the two legs of the driller killer with his, you know. He literally looked at this movie and said, Nah, this is not for me. This is gonna be too, whatever. It’s gonna be too artsy. Highfalutin 

Craig: Yeah, it’s too artsy.

You can tell, right? I know, which is interesting to me because… 43? I think I’m 43. 43 year old Craig looks at that box art and I’m like, oh my god, that is so compelling. Right? Um, it’s Natasha Richardson, who plays Mary Shelley in the movie, like, on her back, draped over a bed with her hair, like, flowing down to the ground, and this little demon perched on her chest.

And it’s inspired by a famous painting called The Nightmare. Uh, which features prominently in the movie, and the scene on the box art is, you know, a scene directly pulled from the movie. But I think you’re right, I think I felt the same way. I was like, no, this is gonna be some artsy fartsy period piece, not interested.

Yeah. And so I don’t re I don’t recall ever picking it up. But… I was excited. Okay, so I was already excited about, you know, the connection to Frankenstein and all that stuff. But, when you and I talked about it last week after the show, I got even more excited about it because you pointed out that it’s directed by Ken Russell.

Mmm. Who we’ve done at least one of his movies before. We did The Lair of the White Worm, is that what it’s called? Which I had no interest in seeing. And… In the beginning I’m like, uh, God, this is dumb, and then it just got crazy, and I ended up really liking it. Yeah, 

Todd: well, full disclosure, if you don’t know who Ken Russell is, he’s a British director, and He’s the kind of guy that I would have been into in college because I was really into film and I was really into esoteric, artsy kind of stuff.

I was seeking the stuff out. I didn’t happen to hear of Ken Russell at that time, but he is well known for doing all kinds of crazy shit. And I admire the guy because I like people who have a singular vision, who follow it unapologetically, and who are… artistic, and smart, and actually have something to say, and are not pretentious.

And I kind of feel like everything I’ve seen of Ken Russell so far, checks most of those boxes. Like you said, we did uh, Layer of the White Worm, and I think, I haven’t gone back to listen to our episode on that, but I’m pretty sure that we thought it was quirky, and weird, and interesting, and funny, yet we, we felt like, probably it was a little above our heads.

You know? There were things here that this guy had in mind that he was saying that we couldn’t possibly cover in an hour long podcast, but It was seriously entertaining regardless, and I, uh, also watched the film Altered States. Yeah, I haven’t seen it. Yeah, you’ve probably seen it on the shelves for decades and heard of it.

But I actually ended up watching it here in Beijing in some little film festival that they were doing horror films, and I thought, this is the most bonkers movie. Especially, like, three quarters in, it’s just weird. And yet, I liked it. I thought, this guy’s saying things that… I mean, he’s communicating something.

Like, art should communicate something. Feelings, emotions, whatever. And despite the fact that I thought the movie kind of went off the rails three quarters of the way through and got stupid, I still felt like I admired this guy and I respected him and I… Walked away from that experience of watching his movie like I’m still talking about it today These are the kind of movies that I think Ken Russell makes.

Yeah, he’s made a number of films. He’s done music videos He’s done all kinds of stuff. He’s made horror movies There are a couple that he’s made that I’m pretty sure we’ll cover on this podcast at some point just because they’re notorious for being extreme and shocking and whatever I love that. I do, too.

Craig: He’s really unique. That’s what I like about him You know Julian Sands is in this movie and he had just come off of the movie that he was nominated or won I don’t remember An academy award for it was another period piece. I just had it in my head No, i’m not gonna be able to think of what it is But he came off of that movie and did this movie which is also a period piece and he talked about how the experiences were so different because he talked about how The film that he had made, the first one, the director, everything was so proper and everything was so perfect, uh, and then he came on to this movie, and it was a period piece, much like the first movie that he had done, but this guy’s method was just so much more gonzo, and it was so much more about trying things and experimenting with things and letting the actors try different 

Todd: things.

I could totally see that, yeah. Yeah, me 

Craig: too. And you said something about, talking about the experience of seeing Altered States. That, I would say that about this, this movie is more of an experience than a movie. 

Todd: You’re absolutely right. And that’s what I, actually, this is what I admire so much about this movie, is that, so, this film, Is centered around the historical event of Mary Shelley and her friends coming together at Lord Byron’s estate and having a party.

As they did at this time before the internet and she came away with it, inspired to write Frankenstein and did. Not only did she come away with it, inspired to write Frankenstein. Frankenstein, but one of the other people at this party came away with it, inspired to write a story about vampire, which ended up sort of setting the stage, really, for the gothic vampire tradition, and inspiring Bram Stoker’s Dracula, among others, so.

It is a… singular moment that we can identify in literary history where authors came and It’s kind of a magical moment. And so it makes sense to make a story about this moment Oh my god, 

Craig: and it’s such a wonderful story and Ken Russell had said that he had been interested in making A movie about this story for like a decade and he had even been given a another script that told this true story but he just felt like it was just dry it was just kind of a straight historical kind of thing um and so then when he got this script he said it was very visual and there was so much that he could do with it visual and he thought that he could make it really scary.

I don’t know if it’s really scary, it’s creepy in parts, but it’s an hour and twenty five minutes long, and really not even that long if you cut out the credits, it’s more like an hour twenty. It’s a short movie. But it took me At least two hours to watch it. Yeah. 

Todd: Cause you were stopping it, right? All the time.

You’re, I was literally looking shit up on Wikipedia. Me too! While I was like, I know these are real people and the things that are coming up in this movie, I’m like, I got to Google that. Like I need to know more about these people. And it did not disappoint. That was the thing. This movie, look, I got on IMDb after I watched it.

And I looked at the trivia. There are nine trivia points on IMDb. That is way too few. I know! I’m disappointed in humanity. I’m disappointed in the collective consciousness of the internet. That there are only nine. Elements of trivia of this film that requires, I don’t know, 90. This movie is so deep. It’s juicy!

References historical events. You’re right, it’s juicy. It talks about people. This is like the Entertainment Tonight of 1819. Exactly! It really is! It is like… All of the interesting shit that was going down with these very interesting people who ended up having an impact on literature, on culture, on all this stuff, who came together on this magical night and birthed this thing.

Why are there only nine dumb things in the IMDb trivia about this movie? Ken Russell and his screenwriter, Stephen Volk, are super clever because they managed to weave a lot of Interesting historical facts into a screenplay that ends up not only including those historical facts, but being highly entertaining and, in my view, placing you in the moment.

I felt like I was there this night with these people who were doing all these drugs. Uh huh. They’re drinking this thing called… Laudanum. Yeah, which is I looked this up too because I was super interested. It’s like a 10 percent opium extract Uh huh mixed with alcohol like these people had no idea what they were doing like right This is the equivalent of like mushrooms and LSD.

Right. They used to 

Craig: use laudanum to treat Opioid addictions. Samuel, Samuel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, famous romantic poet, was addicted to opium, sought medical treatment for his addiction, and they prescribed him laudanum, which he then became incredibly addicted to. 

Todd: Like, what an insane time to document, in a way.

But, basically, a bunch of people get together for a party, they get super, super high, and they themselves come to this party with all this baggage. They’re all f ing each other. Oh my god. They’ve got all these, like, weird ass relationships that only, like, super rich British people at this time, who had estates and manners and nothing else to do with their time, could do.

Then they take these drugs and have a party and, like, go crazy. And… I have to imagine, to be honest with you, that their real life experience couldn’t have been too far removed from what we saw in 

Craig: this movie. It probably was not. That is what is so fantastic about, I, so, in researching Frankenstein, I’m reading all of this stuff about Mary Shelley, and the thing that always stuck out in my mind was that she wrote, I mean, if you’ve read Frankenstein, it’s so great.

It is, and I’ve read it. It’s not what you think. think it’s going to be because it’s not like the universal movie at all. The universal movie is just the most exciting part. The monster part, you know, bringing somebody to life and then the monster being scary, blah, blah, blah. That’s really not what the book is about at all.

In fact, in the book, the monster is highly articulate, intelligent, lonely, a totally sympathetic character who has been abandoned by his creator, which is what this is all about. Yeah. This movie too. Anyway, great book, but the thing that always stuck out to me was that Mary Shelley began writing this book when she was 18 years old.

It was published when she was 19, but she started reading it when she was 18. Unbelievable. It is un believable. But the other thing, then, if you look more into her life, she and her friends…

were scandalous. Yes. They scandalized Europe. Mary Shelley was 16 when she fell in love with Percy Byrne Shelley, another very famous poet, who was already married. They began an affair that carried on and produced a child until his wife died and then they were able to be married. Yes. She was an adulteress.

Her son was 

Todd: a bastard. Her husband was a free love guy. No, this is far from it. Oh, yeah. Lord 

Craig: Byron was scandalous because of claims of, uh, incest and all kinds of crazy shit. Lord 

Todd: Byron didn’t give a shit about anything. If you read about Lord Byron, and I watch this movie and I think, yeah, he must have been this way.

Like, this guy didn’t give a shit about anything. He was totally about following his own whims and doing his own thing. Whatever, you know what like I don’t want to say this out loud, but like I can’t find fault with the guy like follow your own path Well, I’m right, you know, that’s 

Craig: the thing. They were they were free 

Todd: thinkers far ahead of their time 

Craig: in a way Mary Shelley justified her relationship with Shelley by saying, you know, why do we put limitations on love?

You love who you love and Marriage or no marriage be damned who cares they were hippies. Yeah, they were artists they Indulged in mind altering substances, um, and they practiced free love, and they did. And so, Byron was not, like, literally or legally run out of, uh, England, but because he was so disreputable socially, he moved for a time to Switzerland.

Mary, I don’t remember what her maiden name was, but Mary Shelley, Percy by Shelley, and Mary Shelley’s sister all came. to visit Byron and Mary Shelley’s sister was having an affair with Byron and, you know, the, the movie paints this evening as entirely hedonistic, which it may very well have been because they were all about free love and, and all of that stuff.

Yeah, it could have been. So, so all of that stuff is True and makes for such a fascinating story and what happened was this was like historically a really bad summer There had been some sort of natural occurrence where for whatever reason the weather was just really bad that summer and so on their visit The weather was terrible and was raining and so they were forced to stay inside and amuse themselves And so they they amuse themselves by reading German Horror 

Todd: stories.

Uh, Phantasmagoria. Right. A French anthology of German horror stories, translated and published in 1812. This is the time that we’re talking 

Craig: about. Yeah. Right. And, uh, once they had done that, then, uh, the story, who, who came up with the idea? Most people attribute it to Byron. Byron challenged them to see who could write the scariest ghost story.

And they didn’t sit down and write them all in that night, but it did inspire Mary Shelley to write the short story that she would then expand into the novel that became Frankenstein that she published anonymously because women weren’t respected at that time. And the, the other guy, the doctor who was there too, Dr.

Polidori, yeah, Dr. Polidori. John Polidori, yep. He went on to write The Vampire, V A M P Y R E, which is believed to be the first instance of kind of the sexy, romantic vampire before they had always been kind of monstrous and like, you know, demony. Um, but he wrote about a vampire who was good looking and charming and seductive and many believe that that’s where Bram Stoker was inspired to write Dracula.

So, it’s such a cool story in itself. And then this movie… Tells that story, but then the movie posits a world where they, maybe, I don’t know, it gets really weird. They may, like, in coming up with these ideas for these stories, they literally manifest them? 

Todd: I 

Craig: think, I think that’s what the movie wants us to believe.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, okay. I know I’ve been rambling for a long time, but I just wanted to say the first 45 minutes of this movie Tells all of that true stuff and it’s fun and these actors are all great But as it was getting close to the halfway part, I’m I was thinking, you know, this is fun Watching, you know kind of their hedonistic shenanigans, but we’re almost halfway in and you know Nothing really scary has really happened or anything and then it just got bad Shit crazy for the last for the last half of the movie.

Oh my I was like, what is Happening 

Todd: and you know a movie is bad shit crazy when you almost just stop taking notes Like I know you’re just like like what’s the point right, right? I’m trying to write down all the interesting things that I find, and I’m, I’m, I would be pausing the movie every five seconds to write down all the interesting things that are happening, and so I kind of stopped, but then I felt obligated because I have this podcast, so let me just say, Ken Russell, I know you’re dead now, but like, it was an enormous burden for us to try to make notes Because it’s so dense and it’s so interesting and what better compliment for a director than that, right?

I 

Craig: have two full pages of typed single space notes I never take that many notes and you’re right I was pausing every five seconds because you would just get flashes of images that would be on the screen for a second or two And you’re like, what is that? What is happening? Yeah It’s insane and brilliant 

Todd: dialogue insightful Things, everything feels meaningful in this movie.

I 

Craig: know, and I don’t even know how we’re going to be able to go about talking about it. 

Todd: We can’t, we can’t. But, Not in an hour. Ugh, 

Craig: it’s just so good. And, and this is one of the horniest movies I have ever seen. 

Todd: There are, there are nipples that come alive in this movie. Let’s just put it that way. 

Craig: These people are the horniest people.

Yeah. Ever in the world. Super jealous. It, it, they’ll just be doing mundane things, like reading stories and fondling each other. Yeah. There’s a, a full out orgy, like, at one and the one guy, poor Dr. Polidori, like, before they cut to the orgy, you just see Dr. Polidori sitting there, looking at something anxiously.

In my mind, I’m like, oh, he’s watching them f and then it cuts to them f ing. And 

Todd: they are. I called that. I totally called that. We might as well get into the story, but I don’t think this is going to be our typical podcast where we can go through everything beat by beat because there are just too many beats.

Craig: Yeah. 45 minutes is basically the story. That I told just playing 

Todd: out there are a couple things. I do want to point out though first of all We’ve got us an all star cast Julian Sands is Percy Shelley he’s referred to as Shiloh through this by Lord Byron. It was a 

Craig: room with a view by the way A room with a view is the movie.

Oh, 

Todd: there you go. Okay, yeah. Alba Byron is Gabriel Byrne. Uh, Claire, Mary’s half sister. We’ve got John Polidori, who was played by, um… Timothy Spall. Who many people nowadays might know as Peter Pettigrew from the, um… Was that him? Yeah, from the Harry Potter series. Yep, yep, yep. And Mary Shelley, who was obviously, uh, what’s her name, 

Craig: um…

Natasha Richardson. Yeah. Beautiful, talented actress, she was married to Liam Neeson, daughter of, um, oh, Vanessa Redgrave. Yes. Died tragically in a skiing accident, which was, you know, terrible. I’m pretty sure she had kids, and I think, I don’t remember, but, uh, she was a beautiful woman. Beautiful actress.

Probably, you know, in the prime of her career at the time of her death. That’s too bad. And she’s great in this movie! This is her first movie. 

Todd: She is fantastic in this movie. And then, the music! By Thomas Dolby, and anybody who’s… Really into music, like, Tom Stilby has a long and well respected career in the musical field.

A pioneer of electronic music, really behind the scenes, uh, a huge inspiration for a lot of modern musicians, uh, and the music in this movie is just fantastic. It’s very good. It’s so good, it just always fits the scene, and, and sometimes it feels a little more modern and electronic, sometimes it feels very older.

Appropriate 

Craig: to the period, yes. It feels appropriate to the period, but in heightened moments it does get a little more synth y and modern, but it fits, it makes sense, it does serve to heighten those moments. The music is great. It’s beautifully shot. There’s so much good about this movie. It’s absolutely gorgeous in its shooting.

You know, it takes place in this big gothic mansion. The rooms that they are in are palatious. Like they’re just enormous. And then sometimes they’ll be in very confined, like, narrow, dark hallways and the lighting is beautiful, the costume, I mean, it’s a beautiful period movie. Take all of the horror out of it and it’s a beautiful 

Todd: period movie.

It really is. I mean, you could be, take all the horror out of it and you’re in some sort of Jane Austen type, you know, kind of like thing. I love the fact that it’s sort of bookended by this tour group. So there’s this at the time tour group Lord Byron’s house apparently was very popular at the time And there are these victorian dressed people who are on a boat in the lake or whatever across from the house Looking through these binoculars Toward the house while the person is saying and there are ladies and gentlemen On the other side of the 

lake, 

Craig: we have the famous Villa Diodati, where Lord Byron, greatest living English poet, resides in exile.

Romantic, scholar, dualist, and best selling author of child heraldry. He was forced to leave his native land after many scandals, including incest. The adultery with Lady Caroline Lamb. Mad, bad… 

Todd: This gets bookended later on when we get a modern tour group at the very end of the movie doing the very exact same thing.

Kind of showing that this thing, not only is it interesting to us now, But it was interesting to the very same people in the past. And then, my god, like, it’s just, the movie kind of assaults your senses with just weird imagery, which is something that the director tends to do, you know, in his films. Mary Shelley and her crew.

Arrive by canoe. Heh heh, amidst the tour group, whatever, across the lake. And immediately there’s this cute chase. You know, you imagine these Victorian times. They didn’t have a lot to do to entertain themselves. So they got cute and they just entertained themselves. You know, by like, telling stories, and chasing after each other, and having affairs, and like, all this stuff.

Yeah. I love it. 

Craig: Yeah, I do too, and there’s nothing that’s really out of the realm of reality in these opening scenes. Not at all. But there’s a surreality to it. Yes. Like, when they’re coming, they’re coming across the boat, and Claire… Who is Mary Shelley’s, uh, half sister. Is like, doing the, I’m the king of the world thing off the prow of the boat.

Like, she’s leaning up over the prow. And they, they, and they get off the boat and some young girls come out of nowhere and chase Shelley and take his coat off. And, and this is never explained why. Then he throws a peacock and he runs to the house and the, like, it’s, it’s so weird. When they get inside, Byron appears at the top of the stairs, in front of a huge portrait.

Of himself. Yes. Oh my god. And then just such, such weird things like, Mary goes upstairs and runs into a giant 

Todd: goat and… Which has like, the goat itself has like giant tits. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s so weird. And Byron’s like, oh yeah, I don’t go anywhere without my menagerie. This is true. Lord Byron was an animal lover. He had multiple pets, both domestic and exotic, that he…

get had with him all the time. Crazy. Um, then we meet, uh, Dr. Polidori, who is commissioned to write Byron’s biography again, historically accurate. And they’re all drinking laudanum. And then Byron says something like, sometimes when I look upon a face that I have loved, I only see the changes that death will make.

And so he’s obsessed with death. Yeah. He’s just a weird guy. He’s a weird, he’s very enigmatic. He seems to be magnetic, like everybody is drawn to him, but he’s also a dick. It’s like, 

Todd: it’s like an intentional eccentricity, right? Like he himself, like, sort of takes pleasure in the fact that he’s a man. Who doesn’t have to worry about shit, right?

Like he doesn’t need a job. He’s got an inheritance. He has this manor, you know, well, I This isn’t his manor. I think they rented this place, right? It’s rented Yeah But anyway, like, like a lot of people that we read about in literature from this time are of a certain class where they don’t Have to worry about anything, right?

So they can go off on their fancies and they can, you know, write stories and they can do whatever and and they can be weird and He’s eccentric and free love and whatever and they really don’t have to worry about anything. So he’s got this menagerie. He’s got this servant. He’s got this guy doing his biography and they’re in this fancy place.

And it’s kind of fun to step into this world a little bit and experience it through them. But in the same sense, he’s also cute about it. And so… 

Craig: Sometimes, but then sometimes he’s also violent. Yeah, he’s a dick at times. Infatuated. They’re having an affair. Claire 

Todd: is, by the way, Mary Shelley’s half sister.

She’s like a stepsister of hers, yes. Remember I’m Swiss, you beast! Ah, but of course. 

Craig: Switzerland is a selfish, cursed, swinish country of brutes. It just happens to be placed in the most romantic region of the world. Only the English are more unbearable. Which is why I am here, the imprisoned poet. 

Todd: The exile lord.

The fugitive. Fugitive? From what crime? From fact and fantasy. Tell 

Craig: the truth, I’ll beg. He’s the devil. Show them your cloven hooves! She kneels down to take his shoes off and he kicks her, like, across the room and she hits her head on, uh, thing by the fireplace and then he holds her head to the fire and then they make out.

Like, this is the weird dynamic of these people. Like, they just are so passionate in every moment. Usually leads to sex, and like I said, this is the horniest movie ever. They’re all f ed. Like, Byron is f ing all of them, except for maybe, maybe he’s not f ing Mary Shelley. But the rest of them, yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, male or female, it doesn’t 

Craig: matter.

Yeah. And, and when I say, when I say that this is the horniest movie, like, it’s f ing hot. I think. 

Todd: Like, I agree. 

Craig: It’s really hedonistic and sexy and 16 year old me would have worn myself out watching this movie. No shit. For sure. There’s, there’s guy on girl action, guy on guy action, naked Julian Sands more than once looking good.

Like, dang. Yeah. It’s an erotic film. 

Todd: It is. Honestly, and this is probably why, like, uh, you know, 10 year old Todd was maybe a little turned off by it. He could kind of see it by the cover. Yeah. You know, 16 year old Todd should have taken a second look at this. But there’s a part, there’s a part in this, you know, they’re doing these party games.

I mean, if 

Craig: you’ve read They play hide and seek. 

Todd: If you’ve read Victorian era literature, you’re very familiar with this kind of thing. Oh, you know, people get together and, you know, these are these parlor stories, and they have these amusements, and they play these games and whatever. And anyway, they do hide and seek.

While everybody else is running off, Byron says to John, John seems very uncomfortable at this, the doctor. He’s like, party games. And then he says, is fear a game? And Byron, you know, it’s like. You will play as long as you are a guest in my house. You will play my games. And he’s like, uh, okay, I think I’m going to go off to bed.

He’s John sets himself apart from the group pretty early on and is very uncomfortable. And, and, uh, and that, you know, kind of comes to play later on. But there’s this very interesting soundtrack and we just get this tour de force of the mansion Which might as well be a tour de force of our imagination.

I feel like the mansion itself in this movie is It’s not even a real place. It’s just room upon room with fantastical things in it. There’s a suit of armor with snakes on it. Somebody stumbles into a room with an automaton. I think it’s, um, it’s Percy who, who comes into a room. It’s kind of dressed up like the Arabian Nights and there’s this automaton.

And an automaton, I mean, it’s like a robot. An animatronic. Yeah, animatronic, kind of, of the era. Uh, that is a belly dancer, and she moves back and forth, and then she drops her top, and then she drops her pants, and then he pushes her nipple, and then she drops her underwear, and then he looks at her, and then he kind of whacks her away.

It’s cute, because Well, and it’s all 

Craig: it’s all very surreal, because it’s an It’s all surreal. It’s supposed to be an animatronic, but that’s it’s a it’s a person. It’s obviously a it’s 

Todd: a person in there, but Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, yeah, for the movie, yeah. And everyone is going different places. Some people are going to the cellar, Mary Shelley is running around, and the music is just, it changes based on where they’re going.

Number one, we’re talking about sort of the genesis of Frankenstein in a way. And so there are lots of moments in this movie that are referencing that and are making that connection. And the fact that they’re… Uh, these mechanical dolls, these sort of creations of man that are nevertheless not natural, right?

Throughout it are obviously a, a visual reference to that sort of thing. And I thought that was cool. Like there are moments where they cut back to them and the parlor and they’re talking amongst these automatons that are playing the piano or whatever, you know, they’re kind of 

Craig: messing around. Well, the, the game of hide and seek ends with Percy, Shelly naked.

on the roof in a lightning storm. Yeah, 

Todd: that’s pretty pointed. You’re 

Craig: right. They get him back inside, and then they’re all sitting around talking, and he says, lightning is the fundamental force of the universe, the ether, the spirit. And he talks about studying old scientists. I think one of the ones he mentioned was Arepa.

These are the occultist scientists that Frankenstein, the, the maker, not the monster, studies. In the novel. So yeah, it’s really immersing itself in the details of the novel. Shelly talks about how he surrounded himself with the instruments of life, and Byron calls him Shelly, the modern Prometheus. Yeah.

The original title of Frankenstein is Frankenstein. Or, the modern Prometheus. It’s super interesting. And the whole thing about electricity is interesting because that is, uh, really not a product of the novel. Frankenstein does show interest in electricity as a child, but in the novel, he pointedly does not explain how he reanimated the monster.

Like, he makes a point of saying, I did it, but I’m not gonna tell you how. Because. It was a terrible mistake, and I don’t want anybody else to do the same thing. So, the whole electricity bringing the monster to life is more a product of the movies. 

Todd: They go back in, and then they start reading this book. Uh, Byron pulls a book off a shelf and says, Hey, this is a little something I picked up somewhere, we should read it.

It’s called Phantasmagoria, and this is an actual, like they literally read this book at this time and this historical event. It’s a French anthology of German ghost stories, translated anonymously, and it was published in 1812. And Phantasmagoria means… Fantasy or hallucination and I think that is sort of a driver for how we need to interpret the rest of the film going on and the event of this night.

They immediately start drinking this laudanum and everything else that happens to them, it can only be interpreted as Their own hallucinations. And it’s all rooted deeply in their own problems and issues. That’s what makes the movie so interesting, I think. Mary Shelley, we learn, has had a child that, uh, was, was, um, prematurely born and died.

All these things are historical facts. Right. And she’s haunted. 

Craig: She was fascinated with creation and birth. Her own mother died in childbirth with her, which haunted her her whole life. And then in her relationship with Shelley, who was the only man that she was ever in a committed relationship with, she was pregnant four times, but only one of those kids survived, and only for a while.

Yeah. Died, died young. There are huge themes of creationism, birth, you know, uh, be, the, the act of being a creator and creating life. These are huge themes, uh, in Frankenstein. It’s great. Yeah. Like, and it, it plays out here and it’s alluded to, but I feel like if you know the history, it enlightens the experience of the movie.

It just makes it even more fascinating to know that this is. It’s true, and compelling, and there’s even more to it than the movie has time to divulge. It’s just so, 

Todd: I love it. And you know what also I love about this movie is that it talks about the act of invention. Not just in the invention of like a monster or whatever like Frankenstein, but it talks about inventing stories and inventing monsters in your head.

At one point, Byron proposes, and again, this is historical, why don’t we invent our own ghost stories? And so, the rest of the movie revolves around this idea that, through their imaginations, they have invented, ultimately, like, this creature that is haunting them. I think it’s different for each person here, but in essence, the movie carries through this theme that they have created something through their imaginations and through their hallucinations or whatever.

That then, therefore, they end up feeling like God. And that they, then, because they’re so threatened by their creations, because they’re in their hallucinatory state and they’re haunted by it, they feel the need to destroy. And that has parallels to number one, Frankenstein. Right? That’s, that’s the Frankenstein story.

There’s a monster is created, and so the man is God suddenly, but then the creation runs amok and then they feel the need to destroy it, but then you have sympathy for the creation, you know, it becomes complex. It’s the same thing with this story, and it’s the same thing with this movie. It’s the same thing thematically.

By the end of the movie, they’re all saying, well, isn’t this how God is? Like he’s created his creation, but maybe his creations run amok. And now he wants to destroy his creation, but the creation is too powerful. The creation destroys God itself. You know, it’s a threat to God. You know, it’s so interesting the way that this plays out in a very real way.

And. in filmic form. I, I, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Craig: I think so too. And, you know, being in the depths of really studying Frankenstein right now, this is just also fascinating to me. But yeah, when they’re telling their stories or when the contest is suggested, uh, Dr. Polidori suggests a story about a fiend that sucks women dry of their blood.

Obviously that will eventually become the vampire. Then they have the orgy. Hot. While he, while he watches, while Polidori watches. Yeah. And then, like a tree gets struck by lightning, and they’re fascinated by that. I think it’s Byron. It’s either Byron or Percy, I don’t remember. It says something about how it’s more exciting to make a ghost.

Then a ghost story and Mary Shelley gets uncomfortable with this conversation for some reason and and she goes out and she talks to Dr. Polidori about how she lost a child and she says, I’d give anything to bring that child back again, kind of foreshadowing and then they have this seance for lack of a better word.

They have a human skull, they all stand around it and hold hands. And Byron says, Conjure up your deepest, darkest fears. It’s like they’re trying, They want to make a ghost or, or something. So Claire convulses, like it, It looks like she’s coming for like, Yeah. 

Todd: 30 seconds. She is, And, She’s foaming at the mouth.

But then 

Craig: she’s going, Stop them, daddy, they’re hurting me. What? What is happening? And she breaks from the circle, and falls to the floor, foaming at the mouth. I was 

Todd: not surprised that Claire had daddy issues. 

Craig: Yeah, well, the way she’s into Byron, it’s creepy. It’s, uh, it’s weird. They take her upstairs, and this is when weird stuff starts happening.

Mary says that Claire has had episodes like this since she was a kid. She calls it Claire’s horrors, and she says that there was one time that, you know, she had one of these fits and her bed started shaking. It sounds like she was possessed or something. And then Polidori is super gay for Byron, like there’s a, a scene where he like snuggles up to him and he’s like, if there’s, uh, anything I can do for you, but then he gets, but then he totally gets rejected.

Like, I felt kind of bad for this guy because it seems implied that before the arrival of these other three, that Byron and Polidori were engaged. In an affair. Yeah. But with the arrival of these other three, now Byron is distracted by not only Claire, but Byron is CLEARLY super into Percy. Yeah. 

Todd: And Percy’s into it.

Yeah, for sure. Well, probably, Percy’s kind of into anything, but he’s like a free love guy, and again, that tracks sort of historically, I suppose. Uh huh. Uh, Pavlodory is a… Super sympathetic character in this. I, I particularly enjoyed the scene where Byron and Claire are or are not, I’m actually not sure, hooking up in the room behind his, and Polidori himself seems so distraught by this that there’s a crucifix above his bed.

I mean, God, man. The symbolism through this movie is just insane. He’s like, obviously troubled by his homosexuality or whatever. Religiously, whatever. Anyway, there’s this crucifix he kind of takes down from the wall, but there’s a nail that’s sticking out of the wall. And as the other two are moaning or whatever’s going on, he is basically flagellating himself.

He’s hurting himself by slamming his hand repeatedly against that nail in the wall. Yeah. And then he’s like, sucks his own blood, I mean, it’s so Yeah, 

Craig: at this point it just gets so weird, like, I still have over a page of notes, but it’s just a a series of bizarre things that happen. I don’t know, Byron has a weird sex encounter with A servant named Justine, but he like puts a mask on her and calls her by a different name.

Todd: She calls, he calls her Augusta. Now did you read, I don’t know how much, how deep you read 

Craig: into all this. I, I looked into it, but there’s a prominent businessman in America named. August Byron. And that’s all I 

Todd: could find. No, here’s the deal. Um, So Byron and Claire, Again, it’s a theme through this movie that Claire is pregnant with Byron’s kid.

And Byron is 100 percent not interested in having 

Craig: a child. Right. And then he eats it out of her. Yeah, 

Todd: wow, that was nuts. When Byron shows up with blood on his mouth, oh my god. After eating her 

Craig: out, I, like, so I read everything I could find about it, I read the Wikipedia plot summary and it’s like, he eats, he, he performs oral sex which results in a miscarriage, what?

Todd: But in reality, uh, Claire had this child. Oh, I didn’t know that. Claire had this child. He wanted to kind of name her after him. His name is Alba, and he wanted to call her like Albie or something she wanted to. He insisted that she name their child Augusta. So, there is this… Uh, this was Augusta Byron. This was the name of this child, and she sadly only lived to be five years old.

Oh, geez. And Claire. It’s weird, right? It’s like this odd kind of circumstance where Byron didn’t wanna have this child. Claire ended up having the child anyway, he kind of abandoned her as a father. Even though the child ended up going to, you know, had a nanny and had a kind of schooling and whatnot up to five.

But the child died of illness, but Claire, for the rest of her life, blamed Byron. Sort of felt like Byron’s abandonment of his child led to her death. And he himself accepted a lot of blame for her death. And, uh, in later writings, basically laid this bare and said, Yeah, I feel super, super guilty that I abandoned this child and, and I feel responsible for her death.

So, a lot of that is, I think, reflected in the movie. Like, he’s got this, this thing. Like, he calls a maid into his room to service him sexually, basically. But puts a mask on her and calls her Augusta. The movie is very… Not only is it… Sort of purporting to be, thematically anyway, a historical account of this evening.

But also it has lots of references to what will happen later. Yeah. Like these characters sort of foreshadow their own fates. Yes. And so, if you understand and read about the history, you can kind of understand the movie a little better as well. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s true. But, again, like… There’s just, oh my god, there’s so much going on.

It’s a mess. There’s too much. 

Todd: No, I like it. I love it. No, I’m not saying it’s It’s too much for us to talk about. That’s what I mean. It’s 

Craig: gonna throw all this stuff at you, and it’s not gonna go out of its way to explain it. But you know the historical context, or you don’t. And I don’t think that you need to know it.

It’s still a fascinating movie, but there are gonna be lots of things that happen that you’re gonna be like, what? Like It, and it’s not going to be answered. So Mary looks at some sex book, like a really graphic illustrated sex book, and then she finds a sketch of Lord Byron on it and gets super horny.

And then, and then she looks at that painting, the nightmare, and has that dream that she’s in it where there’s a little demon like perched on her chest. And she wakes up terrified and thinks she sees a Frankenstein type monster outside of. Her door, but Percy wakes her up and says, it was just a dream.

And she’s like, no, there’s a weird noise outside. Go check it out. So he goes out to the barn and he sees something too. He sees some kind of weird creature and a giant spider. And he is then freaked out for the rest 

Todd: of the movie. Yeah, he’s kind of gone for most of 

Craig: it. He comes running in and he’s freaking out to Byron.

And he’s like, I have narcolepsy and I never know if I’m like. Asleep and dreaming or awake and he’s freaking out and Byron like caresses him. Percy is is on the floor. Like clinging to Byron’s leg and Byron tells him you need to forget about those women poor poets are for each other Yeah and starts kissing his neck and it’s so hot and then Mary walks in and cock blocks him and He’s super mad about it.

Oh god, and then they have a big that they have a big fight that also involves making out violence and making out and fondling In a pool room. I don’t know! 

Todd: There’s so much! 

Craig: Oh boy, god, I don’t 

Todd: know. It’s heightened emotions. It is. The 

Craig: performances, like, this is all nuts, but they are all, they’re so good.

Like, they are just giving it a hundred percent. They really are. The performances are intense. These are all very, very talented. Actors and have all done, you know, other great films and stage work and, um, so they know what they’re doing. And, uh, it just, it feels very real. Even the violence, I just appreciate stuff like that because that’s difficult for actors to portray, um, violence in a believable way.

And this feels very… natural and real. It’s just, it’s fantastic. I don’t know, she tells Byron that Claire is pregnant and he says Dr. Polidori can do An abortion. Yeah. And then Claire’s tits out on the bed and Byron climbs on top of her. 

Todd: It’s just insane. I love the bit where Byron, who’s like, you know, Claire, I see her.

I have these visions. Claire’s nipples are Eyeballs, that’s 

Craig: percy percy. He says that he he sees he sees a woman with uh, Yeah with eyeballs in her breasts and he keeps talking about that Throughout and he’s going nuts. And again, like there’s just a bunch of weird shit going on I explain he keeps saying it’s near I can smell it.

I smell the decay and they keep finding huge puddles of cum everywhere

Todd: I’m not sure what that was all about. I’m not sure either 

Craig: But they keep finding them and putting their hands in them. I’m like, ew, 

Todd: don’t touch it. That catches the moonlight like the trail of a slug. I don’t understand that bit. Actually. I would love for somebody to interpret that for me. That bit where they’re kind of looking at the attic and they insist there’s something up there, Percy and Mary.

Who have quite a, it’s like a ten minute scene, right? Where they’re by the ladder that leads to the attic, and they find that thing, and Oh god, and, and he insists there’s something up there, but then they get sort of distracted and they go elsewhere, yet, there is this spotlight on that. Ladder. It’s almost like a place they’re supposed to go but they never go.

I, I, I just, I can’t figure that out for the life of me. But, uh, it’s gotta mean something in this movie. 

Craig: It’s lit like a video game. Like, you know you’re supposed to go up there. It’s true. I think that what it’s doing is that it’s trying to establish that they have physically manifested something in what they’re doing, and there literally is something up there.

Um, but when they run away, Mary is by herself and she stands at the bottom of this staircase and Polidori is standing above her, leaning over the banister, dripping blood over her face, and he claims that he was… Attacked by a vampire, both Mary and Percy have seen things, um, but Byron insists that it’s just their imagination.

And he says something like, we are gods, we are creators. I don’t know, it gets really trippy. 

Todd: It does, but, but in the same sense, like, it’s like he’s saying we are gods, we are creators, sort of in a, in a literary sense, like we’re manifesting something. something with our imagination, but it becomes a very real thing for these people.

Like this is a danger. Like we’ve literally created something that is threatening us and we need to shut it down. We need to exercise the demon. We need to destroy the skull. We need to whatever. And I liked that it brought these greater themes of God and humanity into things. I don’t know what to make of all of it, but, uh, it was.

It felt heavy. Well, it 

Craig: kind of, but it’s also just confusing at this point. Because at this point, honest to God, I could go through them all and there’s a part of me that wants to but there’s just not the time. Like, it cuts to vampy Claire sitting on a pool table and Percy comes in and she whips her tits out and she says, Look into my eyes.

And he does and she says, I said, look into my eyes, and he looks down at her boobs, and her eyeballs, and her nipples, and they open up, it was so creepy. 

Todd: And then like, John runs off, and it’s like he’s gonna kill himself, because he’s tormented, and he puts his head into a noose, and he sits on a horse, and the horse is gonna gallop away, and he’s gonna hang himself, but he didn’t even…

Tie the thing, I guess, up in the rafters. So he falls down, but then as the horse runs off, some kind of demon or Frankenstein’s 

Craig: monster 

Todd: jumps down out of the thing and gets on the horse and runs off like, what does that mean? I don’t know. 

Craig: Again, I, I think it’s just that, uh, they have manifested. So like, you know, that, that is Frankenstein’s monster.

I think she has manifested it for, I don’t know, or the inspiration for what will be. 

Todd: I can’t 

Craig: go through that again. I can’t. For God’s sake, Mary, we can do it. What we created with our minds, we can 

Todd: destroy. Yes, like God, we have created. And perhaps God, like us, wants to destroy his creatures before 

Craig: they destroy their creator.

But God is 

Todd: already dead,

and then 

Craig: there’s a whole very heady conversation about it. Yeah, it’s here. It’s too late. There’s no time. Yes, that is time. 

Todd: We 

Craig: must

rid ourselves Purge. Claire understands. She knows.

We must be free. And then Claire runs down the stairs in Rewind, like I have in my note, she runs down the stairs backwards, but which is true, but it’s clearly a reverse shot of her running up the stairs that they’re playing in reverse, so it’s got that surreal. Weird things to it and so then they go looking for her and they find her filthy and naked and crawling around on the ground With a rat in her mouth.

Yeah, and Mary says it doesn’t even make any sense She’s she’s terrified of rats and one of the one of the men says she’s telling us that we need to kill our fears It’s coming for us. Empty your minds. Quickly. Swallow all the hate, the horror. We can wipe it away like we can from a dream. No, thoughts are immortal.

Thoughts can’t die. They can die if we join together. And we form one mind. Hold my hand. God

defier!

Shirley! Mad Shirley! Mad creator of life! we can’t get rid of the horror? What if we create more Oh! What love between a mad god and the devil! Yes. Yes, I am the devil. Yes, Mother Mary, Mother of Christ. I am the devil that has possessed your lover. A position that destroys like your wife was destroyed by your sodomy.

Like every lover you’ve ever raped!

Women, men, boys, and even Augusta! For Christ’s sake, Mary! Go on! Tell us, my lord, how does it feel to…

This is all very confusing. Byron and, Byron and Shelley are convinced that they need to redo the seance because they can’t exercise, they don’t believe in God, so they can’t send the, these things that they’ve created out of their minds. They can’t send them to heaven or hell. So what they have to do is they have to.

Banish them back into their minds. Shelly and Byron are all about this. Claire is just swinging naked on a gate. Back and forth. So they can just grab her. Right, so they can just grab her to help out as necessary. But Mary’s not into it. I have no idea what’s going on. Yeah. 

Todd: In my notes, literally all it says is pandemonium.

Yeah. 

Craig: Just crazy shit happens. Like, they’re doing this thing, and it’s pandemonium all around, and she grabs a huge Mary grabs a huge rock and smashes the skull, which causes, like, demon wind. I don’t know, they’re, like, in the catacombs, and all of a sudden it’s super windy. And she tries to stab Byron, but Percy throws his body on Byron’s and says no, and then starts Passionately making out with him.

It’s so hot. Oh god, Julian stands in Gabriel Byrne. Oh boy. That was some good stuff. Then I don’t even know what happens after that. So she, oh, that’s what she, so she runs out and she runs into the goat and then she hears a child’s voice calling her and she opens the door and then everything is nuts. 

Todd: I, I don’t even know.

She goes to like, she’s like in a passageways where there are multiple doors and she pops out a wand and John’s being consumed by, you know, he’s had the poison. By the way, John ended up killing himself in real life. Cockroaches are coming out of his mouth and she’s back in the room with the doors and then she’s out in the garden where everyone’s blindfolded and…

Byron’s, like, going to lay a little child on something, and then she gets pulled back in. That’s super weird. Oh, it’s just like 15 different things, 

Craig: and then She falls into the past where she’s giving birth and the baby is stillborn, and 

Todd: Percy gets, like, pulled by in the water, uh, by some things. And I looked this up, cause I just knew it.

I watched this and I was like Did the real life Percy die in a boating accident? And yeah, he did. That happened. 

Craig: She’s, yeah, she sees Byron naked and covered in leeches, which he’s scared of. And then, and then she almost jumps off the balcony, but Shelly pulls her in and throws her down on the bed. They’re, they’re laying together arm in arm in the bed.

And she says, I almost did it. If I, if I jump off, it’ll all go away. And he says, no, the storm is over. Fade to black. Then it’s the next morning and She’s sitting in front of her mirror like brushing her hair And she says in VO that our monsters will stay with us until it sees us to our deaths And then she walks into the garden past a big cage of baboons Yeah And finds everybody just acting normal, like…

Todd: Chillin in the garden, havin a picnic. Dr. Polidori 

Craig: and Byron are sitting together very intimately, like, you know, snuggled up to one another, both of them seem happy, and Byron says, You’re probably tired out from our little night of theater. Uh, but it was, it was just the imagination, nothing more. I don’t mind that the movie doesn’t clearly lay out.

What happened if any of it like I’m willing to believe that they were all just stoned and kind of freaking out That’s fine Maybe it was all a dream. I’m fine with that. Like, I don’t care. I would actually rather it be ambiguous. Yeah. But, he asks her, you know, if she was in, what, what she’s thinking about.

And then she basically lays out the plot of Frankenstein. Yeah. She talks about, it’s, it’s, it’s about this creature who’s created by a man, but the man abandons him. And, um, then the creature is alone and la la la la. And it’s, it’s great. I mean, she lays it out. Exactly as, uh, it will eventually play out. And then it jumps, like you said, to the frame story, basically, of, uh, these modern day, you know, 1986 modern day tourists, giv being given a tour of this estate, and told all of the true historical salacious…

Stories about these people. Yeah. And basically, this serves, this voiceover of this tour guide, serves as an epilogue because it lays out the fate of all of the characters that we’ve been with through the whole movie. And you’ve pretty much explained it. But something created that night, 170 years ago, lives on.

Still haunting us to this day. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

And it shows, uh, like an infant. Under the water. And then in my notes I have, THE END. HOLY SHIT. It’s just… See, the movie is an experience. It really is an experience. We cannot do it justice. In fact, we should have said at the beginning, you should watch this before… Listening 

Todd: to it. Now I feel bad about that, because the movie is really just an experience.

Like, there’s no amount of recapping we can do that would really, uh, do justice to the film, or give you It’s not just a plot! It’s smart. And it’s artistic, and it is visceral, and it’s emotional. 

Craig: Visceral is a great word to describe it, it certainly is. 

Todd: Yeah, and it’s never boring, and you might, I don’t know, I guess if you’re of a certain mindset, you’re just gonna watch the whole thing and you’re just gonna laugh at it the whole time, and say, this is ridiculous, this is bonkers, it doesn’t make any sense.

I laughed 

Craig: out loud several times and I think that that was intentional and it got very mixed reviews, very mixed, like critics either loved it or hated it. Um, but the ones who liked it, uh, cited its dark humor. For sure. Um, and there are parts where things were so crazy or they would say something so absurd that I laughed out loud and I felt like they knew what 

Todd: they were doing.

I think that was intentional. It touches all the emotions, really, at some point or another. It’s not a straightforward plot. In summation, you could just say, dramatization of the night in which Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was born. But that’s an oversimplification of how dramatized it is, you know? It’s a ride you’re gonna go on with them, and honestly, I feel like, uh, As a proponent of film, as a guy who feels like film reaches us and touches us in ways that other mediums don’t, like, I feel like it’s very successful in taking us on this ride.

And maybe even giving us the similar experience of what these people went through in their drugged up states, in their inspired states, and whatever. Also, with the baggage and weight of all the crazy ass drama, human drama that they brought with them to this event, I love the fact that this modernized these people for 

Craig: me.

Yeah, yeah. And humanized them. I mean, it is, it is historical fiction, um, but it’s, it’s rooted deeply in reality. I read a quote from Julian Sands, he said, um, I think these portraits are rooted in reality. If people think otherwise, it’s because of the later Victorian whitewash of them. These were not simply beautiful romantic poets.

They were subversive, anarchic hedonists pursuing a particular line of amorality. The film portrays Lord Byron as demonic, and Shelley is on the verge of madness, but the film is an expressionist piece, and that’s not an unreasonable expression of their realities. For sure. Yeah, I think that’s great.

Todd: Shelly was known as a, uh, she was highly unstable, she had multiple breakdowns, she had issues, and, and good, for good reason, you know, she went through serious trauma, she had these Weird relationships with people. Not weird, but just very different for the time kind of relationships with people. She was a pariah.

Craig: She was, her own father cut off all ties with her because of her relationship with Percy Shelley. Wouldn’t speak to her. So yeah, she, she went through a lot. And I’m sure that, you know, all of those miscarriages, growing up without a mother, feeling guilt for the death of her mother. There was a darkness, uh, in her that, um, is, expressed beautifully.

Now, Frankenstein, as I’m reading it, is not perfect, but it is really, really engaging, and it’s a really engaging exploration of the nature of creation and what that means. Uh, and it explores other things too. I mean, it’s It’s incredibly relevant with the, you know, dawn of an advancements in AI, you know, like just because you can, should you, uh, it’s, it’s themes I think are still pertinent, um, and relevant today.

And I’ve just. really been enjoying it. Like I said, it, you have to kind of willingly suspend your disbelief, but if you look at it as, um, an exploration of some of those themes, it’s really fascinating. And the fact that she wrote it at 18 boggles my mind. She’s far more articulate at 18 than I, at 18 than I will ever be.

Right. 

Todd: How many people of this era were, though? I mean, to be honest, like, they just lived a different life, they had different views, they had different philosophies, I mean, yeah, you’re right, I agree with you, it just boggles my mind that an 18 year old could come up with this, but then again, like, people in this age of 13 were already becoming mothers, and the weight of responsibility of parenthood, so perhaps they grew up a little earlier than their years.

I don’t know. I know that I came to Frankenstein, uh, I, I hadn’t read the book for ages. I did read the book at one point, but when I was a kid, you know, obviously I was exposed to the Universal Monster Story, uh, I saw, I saw the black and white movie because my dad was into black and white movies, and of course, pop culture and all that.

It was um, Classics Illustrated, I believe, the comic book series that took old literature like this and made it into comic books for kids, and adults, really. So, yeah. I read that and I was floored. I could not believe at that. I don’t know. I was maybe 10 or 11, but I I was shocked that the Frankenstein that I knew wasn’t the Frankenstein that, that wasn’t the original Frankenstein.

Yeah. That comic book, in that form, it was very faithful to the book. The themes of it, and this idea that this guy creates this thing that gets out of control, but the monster’s also sympathetic, and then, therefore, the monster gets resentful towards its creator, and then the monster pursues its creator.

He murders the creator’s bride on her wedding day, and then… And then Frankenstein himself is, like, pursuing him to all eternity to Antarctica, you know, through the end of time. Like, that destroyed me as a child. To this day, it haunts me, this whole story, and the implications of it, too. I’m really glad that we’re starting off October, you know, our series of Halloween horror stories with this.

You know, this kind of thing, like, not only does it have its roots in these sort of classic monsters that we tend to gravitate towards during the season, Yeah. But it also, it explores it in a way that like, I think is fun and we don’t do often enough. We don’t really pursue and maybe we’ll be new for a lot of our listeners.

I think, I think this is a great way to set off the season and I’m really glad we did this movie. Thank you. Me too. So much for finding it. 

Craig: You’re welcome. And thank you for, uh, indulging me. It was a lot of fun and I still am just really enjoying this deep dive into all things Mary Shelley. I, um, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen the original Universal.

Frankenstein, so that may be something we have to check out at some point. It’s 

Todd: better than you would think, you know, I think it kind of holds up today to a certain extent. Thematically, anyway, like, you’d be surprised at how this kind of old black and white, more or less simplified version of the tale, that’s supposed to be a little more salacious and exploitative, actually gets to the heart of the story and is rather…

Craig: And then, uh, I know in 1994 there was another adaptation, Kenneth Branagh, I don’t remember if he directed it, but he plays Victor Frankenstein and Robert De Niro is the monster. I remember that one. Yeah, I think I saw it when it came out, but I don’t remember anything about it, but I’ve read that it’s, you know, uh, a more faithful adaptation of the novel.

And I just saw just this morning that there’s a movie called Mary Shelley, uh, starring one of the fanning characters. Sisters. I can’t remember which one. Wow. But that tells the story of her life. And in particular, this night. So, still lots of stuff to dive into and I’m looking forward to it. But anyway, thank you all for listening.

If you enjoyed this podcast, the best thing that you can do for us really is to, uh, recommend it to a friend. We would love to reach an even wider audience. Or you could leave us a review wherever podcasts. As long as you’re nice. 

Todd: We don’t want to hear from you otherwise. 

Craig: And, uh, if you’re a fan and you want to show us a little bit of monetary support, we do have a Patreon page where we provide, you know, a few little extras for those who want to go that extra mile.

We do some minisodes and some written reviews and stuff like that. And we love interacting with our community on that page and would love for you to join us if you’re so inclined. Until next week, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In what has to be one of our most contentious episodes yet, Todd and Craig spar over the final film in Lucio Fulci’s “Gates of Hell Trilogy”, 1981’s The House By The Cemetery. Is this a hidden gem? Or just a dumb schlocky mess? Listen and pick a side, then let us know YOUR feelings in the comments!

The House By The Cemetery (1981)

Episode 361, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, if you remember from last week, well, I guess if you were a patron, uh, you can hear us, uh, sort of spill over into our conversations after. The podcast is over, and uh, last week, well, most of our conversations after the podcast are over often revolve around, what are we gonna do next time?

Or at least they get to that point. It was my turn to pick this week, and I knew that I just was in the mood for something not particularly modern, something old school, something that might even be silly, something that might even be dumb, or even European. And so I knew Craig might hate whatever I proposed.

And so I was like, yeah, Craig, I’m probably gonna pick something you hate. And so Craig said, well, Please, could you just choose four of them and put them up to our patrons and let them decide? So, I picked four. In case you’re not a patron, you’re interested in the four that I picked. They were Neon Maniacs from 1986, where teenagers discover a band of homicidal monsters living under the Golden Gate Bridge, which I ran across fairly recently, 80s cheese.

Shock Waves from 1977, which is a Nazi zombie one that I’d been wanting to do for a while, starring Peter Cushing and John Carradine. I Drink Your Blood from 1970. Which is about devil worshipping hippies who get rabies after eating meat pies filled with dog blood. This is a grind Hehehehe This is a grindhouse classic.

I mean, I’ve seen the title everywhere, the poster and everything like that. I’ve been wanting to watch that for a while. And, uh, The House by the Cemetery. 1981. Lucio Fulci’s… Haunted house classic the third in his series of gates of hell his gates of hell trilogy I pretty sure that Craig would never pick any of these on his own So I put it up to the patrons and guess which one won the house by the cemetery 1981 by a pretty wide margin Craig, had you ever seen this before?

Craig: No, why would I watch this? 

Todd: No, by the way, was I wrong about any of these? Would you have ever chosen any of these? Or were you in any way hoping that somebody would pick one over another? No, they all sounded awful 

Craig: and I’m sure they all are. I don’t know why you are so fascinated. Oh God. 

Todd: Oh, I love awful movies. Notorious, awful movies.

Craig: Yeah, apparently like, uh, geez. 

Todd: They lead to some of our better episodes, I think. We’ll see. Alright, so I’m just gonna come right out of the gate, and I’m gonna say this is the second time I’ve seen this movie. I watched it for the first time fairly recently. I wanna say last year, and so this is the second time watching it, and I have to say, I enjoyed it more the second time than even the first time, and I’m just gonna go on record to say.

I actually really enjoyed this film.

Craig: I can’t imagine how you inspired yourself to watch this a second time. This was one of the most painfully boring movies I’ve ever seen. It didn’t make any sense. Like, it’s not even that it didn’t make sense, it’s just… Who, like, there’s nothing to it. It’s so stupid.

Like, every, every part of it is dumb. Like, you put all the parts together, and they make a movie, but… Come on. 

Todd: I actually thought this is one of the more straightforward of the Fulci movies we’ve seen, so far. Let me summarize 

Craig: this movie in ten seconds. A family moves into a house by a cemetery, A baby cries.

There’s a… A killer. It kills people. The end. That’s it. Like, it’s so stupid. Dr. Freudenstein, I feel like I need to talk quietly. I feel like now I’m… You, you may, you’re gonna have to explain to people why we’re talking quietly. 

Todd: Quietly right now because I’m afraid my, we’re recording this rather late, and I’m afraid my neighbors are going to complain if I laugh too loudly or I speak too loudly.

It’s like… close to midnight here, so I’ve got to be quiet about it. So I’m gonna try to restrain my laughter. I’m gonna try to speak slowly and seductively like this. If you’re an ASMR fan, you might enjoy this episode even more than usual. This is 

Craig: our ASMR episode. Yeah, okay. I wanted to hurt myself by the end.

From all that f ing crying. You know what I’m talking about, like, the incessant child crying through the whole movie. 

Todd: In the soundtrack? In, 

Craig: in the movie! Like, what movie did you watch? Through the whole movie.

Through the whole thing. 

Todd: Did you have some other YouTube video on loop in the background or something while you were watching this? No! 

Craig: Todd, I, I almost called you Alan. Alan, it was in the whole movie! Like, it was a thing. They commented about it at one point. Somebody said something about the, the crying.

And it happened the whole 

Todd: time. Well, I guess I was blissfully unaware of it. Maybe my old ears, or maybe because my television, because I actually watch it on television and I don’t have the headphones in, so maybe some of these, like, uh, more subtle sounds, uh, escaped me. I, you 

Craig: have, I’m gonna make you watch it again with earbuds so that you can be driven insane.

It’s incessant in the background. I can’t believe you, well, that, that’s my whole thing that I wanted to talk about. So maybe I 

Todd: just thought my neighbor’s baby was, you know, particularly colicky or something while I was watching this. Okay. 

Craig: So, so here are my notes. Okay. So here, yeah, I can’t like, that’s literally.

The biggest thing that I took away from this movie, so I don’t know what we’re going to talk about now. The movie 

Todd: opens. Craig, I’m so disappointed. Go on. That I didn’t like this? Are 

Craig: you kidding? 

Todd: I thought it was terrible. I thought it was terrible. It’s not fantastic, but you don’t go to a Fulci movie to looking for Hollywood level polish or anything like that.

I mean, you know what you were getting into, right, when we sat down to watch this? Fair enough, but 

Craig: you knew what I was getting into, and I don’t like these movies! I try to be nice about it. I try to find something good in them, and I just couldn’t. No, nothing. Like, okay, so we open. On a house by a cemetery.

Todd: There’s a house, and a cemetery, and then boobs. 

Craig: That’s what I thought. You stole my joke. Okay, so, house by, we open on a house by a cemetery. Tits McGee is looking for Steve. Steve? Steve? Steve running with her tits out. She finds Steve scalped and pinned to the door with a pair of sewing scissors. M’kay. And then the killer stabs Tits McGee through the head and the knife comes out of her mouth.

And it zooms in on her ring, because it’s gonna show up later, for no reason, it makes no difference, but we see it. And we see that like, the killer’s hands are messed up, and the killer drags Tits McGee out of the room, and into a door. 

Todd: Into a door in the kitchen, 

Craig: which then closes the door. It’s, it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface lives in the basement, uh, and then it’s day, credits, title.

Those are my notes. This is the 

Todd: first You just stopped taking notes after that. This is the first, this is the first three minutes of the movie. Without going any further, don’t tell me that you didn’t find this intriguing. No, not really like you got tits you got your house by your cemetery So, you know that checks by the title and then a person gets murdered quite brutally Right in the beginning and dragged into the cellar.

Don’t you want to know? Alone, 

Craig: no that alone. Oh my 

Todd: god. No I what? Do you wanna have a horror movie anymore? Jesus . God, 

Craig: honestly, like I put the movie on and then Alan started talking to me. So I paused it and I like, you know, I took my headphones off and he walks over. I don’t remember. He was doing something behind me and he’s like, podcast movie?

And I was like, yeah. And it was Tits McGee. And he was like, Todd’s pick? I was like, uh huh.

Todd: Wait, what makes this any different? What makes this so far any worse than any other slasher movie we’ve seen? What makes this any worse? Your, your whole summary of this movie is exact, could be used for every Haunted House movie we’ve ever watched. Absolutely, absolutely. Or every slasher movie we’ve ever watched.

But this is 

Craig: boring, there’s nothing, like, it’s not clever, it’s not funny, 

Todd: it’s not Okay, wait a minute, no, I, I disagree. I disagree with you 100%. Okay, after this happens, a little girl looks out a window, and it turns into a black and white photo on a wall in New York. There’s this girl peering out this window of this black and white photo of this house that we’ve just seen, and now there’s a kid who’s just staring at it.

He’s got blue as hell eyes. Okay, he’s annoying. I’m gonna murder 

Craig: that child. I hate him. I hate. Him. His name is Bob. Who names are Kid 

Todd: fucking Bob? That’s, you know, the writer of the movie named his kid Bob. The kid’s real name is Giovanni Reza . That’s better. 

Craig: But the thing that infuriated me about this kid is anytime he opened his mouth, because this whole movie is dubbed fine, I’m used to these Italian movies being dubbed.

Not a problem. This is clearly an adult. Affecting a child’s voice. Mommy, 

Todd: what’s the matter? Mommy? Why does that girl keep telling me I shouldn’t go there? What girl? Mom. The one standing at the window in that house. Ah, I guess she had something to do. Let’s just say you never saw her in the first place, right?

Yes, I did. I saw her face, she was waving and I could read her mouth. And did she say anything to you? Yep. She said that I shouldn’t go over there. 

Craig: Why did you say that, Mommy? 

Todd: Fuck 

Craig: you, kid! I wanted to kill him. I wish he 

Todd: would die. All right, fair enough. He stares at the photo, and he says, Mommy, why does that girl keep telling me that I shouldn’t go in there?

And she’s like, what are you talking about? And he’s like, the girl in the picture, in the window. And the mom looks at the picture, and the girl is not there. You don’t think this is creepy? 

Craig: I’m not gonna let you talk me into appreciating this. You don’t think 

Todd: there’s no intrigue here? No, 

Craig: if I did, which I’m not sure that I do or not, it would just make me even more angry because nothing pays off.

Like, I guess you can, you can conjecture about what is going on here, but you never really know. Well, that’s the point. The other thing that infuriates me. Okay. So as it turns out, Bob’s dad, Norman. Is taking a new job where he’s taking over for some scientists who was studying suicide. What? I don’t know. I thought at some point they said he was studying suicide and that was ironic because then he committed suicide.

Like. 

Todd: Like a murder suicide. He slaughtered his mistress and then 

Craig: killed himself. Right. So he’s taking over. And so you re in like the dumb, annoying kid is like, Mommy, the girl says we shouldn’t go there. And the mom’s like, Oh no, but we’re going to go there anyway. It’s fine. Like it’s stupid. And so then.

Todd: The girl’s name is Lucy. Norman and Lucy and their kid Bob pack up their station wagon and they leave New York City to go to some little town in New England. They’ve rented this very same house in order for them to stay there while he picks up the pieces and tries to figure out what’s going on. It’s, it’s tenuous.

You don’t really understand. What exactly he’s supposed to be researching, but he’s 

Craig: fine. I don’t really care that it doesn’t matter. We know we have to get them to the scary house and that’s fine. Uh, it’s the exact same. Well, not exactly, but pretty much the same premise as burn offerings. Like, okay, you know, there’s a scary house.

We got to get this family and they’re fine. Don’t have a problem with that. And then we get to a new place that yeah. We need to talk about the girls and the mannequins, which I also, but the thing that bothered me the most was multiple times in the movie, somebody says to the dad, you’ve been here before I’ve seen you.

And he was like, no, I haven’t. Nope. Uh, no, not with me. And that never pays off. Like I have no idea why multiple people. Had seen him there before at some point I thought, Oh, okay. Well, that other doctor was out here having an affair. Like maybe this is like the mistress house and maybe that’s why he’s being shady about it, but they never explained that.

Do they? 

Todd: You’re right. This has never been 

Craig: like, they draw attention to it multiple times. Like, it seems like it should be central to the mystery, 

Todd: and it never pays off. At one point, one of the characters even says to him, Dr. Boyle, you will pardon my indiscretion, please. What was he so eager to, um, discuss with you back then?

Back when? When you came to visit him with your daughter, don’t you remember? Last October, I think it was. I never paid a visit to Dr. Peterson. In fact, this is the first time that I’ve set foot in this town. Are you sure? Yes, of course, positive. And then, I have a son, not a daughter. 

Craig: Easy mistake. That boy could be a girl.

Todd: It’s true. I mean, he’s clearly voiced by a girl. An adult girl. So, okay. So, yes. There are a lot of loose threads in this movie. A lot, Todd. They’re all 

Craig: loose threads. Nothing adds up. It bothers me because then, that stupid little girl. What’s that little girl? Her name is Mae. First of all, she speaks to Bob psychically.

From Boston to New York. And, and then as soon as they leave New York, we cut immediately to her standing with some woman in front of a store looking at mannequins and then one of the mannequins heads falls off, but 

Todd: striking green eyes. Yeah, almost looks, it’s a very odd looking mannequin. It looks like it’s, like, halfway realistic.

And then, you’re right, the head falls off, and it’s a bloody stump under there, and it rolls forward, and the girl screams. Todd. 

Craig: It drives me crazy. And then she 

Todd: just says, Wait, wait, wait a minute. I know that this 

Craig: pays off, but it, Grrrr! 

Todd: At this point in the movie, you’re frustrated? Or are you not intrigued?

At this point in the movie, not knowing what’s coming, were you frustrated or intrigued? I don’t know. I didn’t like it, Todd. I don’t know what to tell you. You didn’t like it? Because you needed to have every You’re not the kind of guy who has to have everything spelled out for him right in the beginning.

This is building mystery. Who is this girl? What is the deal with this house? Why do people think he’s been there before? What are they gonna find when they get there? And why is this girl warning him, the boy, not to go to the house? Which, of course, the kids don’t believe, and she’s communicating with them psychically.

Like, this is an interesting story. 

Craig: We’re making it sound more interesting than it was. It was just boring. It was just random cuts to random scenes of people that we don’t know. And like, oh, it’s artsy. 

Todd: Oh my God. 

Craig: It not. This happens all the time. It’s lazy. It’s lazy. This happens 

Todd: all the time in movies, Craig.

Of course, it’s not lazy. You don’t know what, what these people are. You don’t know their relationships. But later on the movie starts to piece the, put the pieces together. No, it doesn’t. That is the problem. 

Craig: No, it doesn not, it does not start together. Sometimes it doesn’t together. No, it doesn’t. . So they, so the random mannequin scene and then the, they arrive.

Todd: I can’t believe I’m gonna have to explain all this to you. Alright, go on. Oh my god. 

Craig: Like, I get the gist of it, but so much of it doesn’t make any sense. So they, they park, like, in the town square or something, and the parents leave the kid alone in the car. Which.

It’s a little jarring today, but I was left in the car alone with the doors unlocked many times, right? It was a busy street 

Todd: in a sleepy town. Yeah, but 

Craig: then the girl talks to him psychically again from down the street. And when the parents kind of, I actually kind of liked that shot, like the long shot. Of her.

It’s creepy as hell standing way down at the end of the street. I what 

Todd: want that? He’s, he’s sitting in the car and we just have a closeup on him and we hear this girl’s voice like it’s in the seat behind him, which would be creepy enough. He turns around and instead looks through the rear of the car and this girl is all the way across the street, but she still sounds like she’s right there next to him.

I thought that was creepy as fuck. 

Craig: I liked that. Shot. I liked the long shot of her down the street, but then the parents come out and he’s not in the car and they panic for a second and there are intense closeups because this is full. She just a huge fan of like intense face closeups because this movie is full of them.

Um, and like 

Todd: gentle, both. Maybe Fulci goes a little overboard with it. Well, I don’t know. I don’t remember. He thought it was cool once or twice, but then he kind of like, he’s like the guy who takes a joke a little too far. I 

Craig: don’t remember. I get them mixed up. But I feel like either or both of them do, and Like those really intense face close ups in really, but in really intense moments, like in moments where the spear is coming right at your eye, like that’s crazy.

And that’s intense. And I really dig that. But this, like all of these intense closeups, it’s just like dramatic chipmunk. It’s like, yeah. Yeah. Like, they are, like, all the time having these intense reactions. Like, calm down. I’m like, Take a sec, take a breath. Look around. He’s right there. But that’s, so, okay, so, The kid’s not in the car, and then, And then, surprise chipmunk, GASP And then they look across, like, he’s right there, like, he’s just sitting in the grass, right outside the car, but 

Todd: he has 

Craig: this big doll, and the doll looks like me, and now, I’m like, okay, now, this is getting interesting, because, that girl, Like she’s going to be his friend, but she’s really the doll and the parents aren’t going.

No, no, no, thank you. We never see that doll again. Like the mom looks it over at some point. Like, she’s just like fondling it. Her and the dad are talking. She’s like fondling the dog and the dog, the doll. And, uh, out of nowhere, for no reason, she freaks out and like throws it down. And like, Bob is always bringing home this trash.

Todd: What? What are you 

Craig: talking 

Todd: about? Okay, you’re right. This is also There’s weirdness. That is weird. But what Mae says to him is sinister. She’s like, I’m Mae, and I’ve been waiting for you. You shouldn’t have come, Bob. Bob is stroking this doll. At this point, I’m thinking Mae’s a ghost. That’s what Me Too, I’m thinking, but that’s all she ever says.

Craig: Every time she shows up, that’s all. No, no, don’t do it. Don’t go in there. She says other stuff. 

Todd: No, she does not. No, she says other. Oh, okay. Oh, I’m about to tell you some stuff that she says Fine. But first she shows up and when they show up at the house, um, Lucy, who is. Norman’s wife is unsettled that it looks exactly like the photo on the wall in his apartment, and he totally dismisses it.

Um, he’s just like, all these houses, they all look the same, blah, blah, blah. That’s interesting, right? Like, why would No, 

Craig: it is not interesting! Be That’s exactly why it’s not interesting, because there’s no answer to that question! 

Todd: Hmm, maybe not. 

Craig: Listen, if there’s an answer, just tell me now. I don’t care if it’s a spoiler or not.

Like why is he so shady about it? Why does everybody keep saying they’ve seen him there before? I feel like at some point in time that was part of the story, but it got cut out and I think you might be 

Todd: right. It makes no sense. Because this, this script went through multiple rewrites by multiple authors.

Um, Fulci himself, like, wasn’t happy with the script that he got initially. He thought it was too derivative of another movie that had come out years before. And so, like, yeah, it has been through different writers, and I think there are trace lingerings of… Lingering traces, of, um, I 

Craig: like that trace lingering.

You like that? Yeah. That’s fun. I’m gonna trace, linger 

Todd: using that . I think I coined a new phrase. I like it. Anyway, go ahead. I wanna hear, once I hear it in a movie, uh, I’ll, I’ll know it came from me. . Anyway. Yeah. Um, I agree with you. I, and I also think that Fci, along with Argento, along with a lot of these Italian guys, they put creepy shit into the movie just to be creepy, even though.

Ultimately, it makes no sense, or it has no payoff, or the best you can say is, well, It was a dream, it was a vision, or maybe there’s some backstory that we’re never going to get. I feel like there was probably something more. 

Craig: That’s why I say it’s cheap, it’s because it’s nitpicking like, ooh, creepy little kid, let’s put that, ooh, creepy doll, ooh, creepy this, creepy that, but nothing comes of it.

No, it’s not. Yes, things come of it. 

Todd: No, now you’re just picking little things that definitely nothing comes of it. And you’re saying the whole movie is full of this. What comes of that doll? No, nothing comes of the doll, but it’s weird. 

Craig: What comes of him dismissing her when she says, Oh, there was this picture on our wall.

What comes of that? I told you. 

Todd: I think it’s lingering from another script, but you’re dismissing the whole movie. You’re saying nothing comes of anything. That’s not true. But yes, nothing comes of these two things. Oh my goodness. Fine, this is almost painful for me. All 

Craig: right, here we go. I’m sick of doing all the work.

You’ve summarized it. 

Todd: Wow. It’s a good thing this is our ASMR episode. Okay, 

Craig: alright, in my notes, I’m up to mom freaks out about doll for no reason. Norman tells her to take her pills. And then, I guess I’ll be doing 

Todd: it then. They come in the door. And they see the kitchen, and they see that door, which has been boarded shut.

Who boarded that door shut? That’s creepy. It’s subtle in the background, like they don’t, they make no mention of it. That’s true, 

Craig: I didn’t notice it was boarded up. I didn’t notice it was boarded up until… Oh my god, Todd. I am just so infuriated about all of this, because 

Todd: then… The woman is hearing things in the house.

Craig: Yeah, they’re all hearing things. Crying. I can’t, I am still blown away. Seriously, you have to put, you have to put this movie back on, and put in earbuds, and just listen to any part where they’re in the house, because there is, there’s constant crying. Like, I don’t understand how you didn’t hear it, because several times, they thought it was Bob, and went looking for, 

Todd: like, Oh, there are moments when it happens.

There are moments when it happens I remember moments when it happens I don’t remember it happening all the time like a constant You make it sound like it’s a constant, uh, in the back of the soundtrack No it’s there, it’s just Oh, it’s only there when it needs to be there 

Craig: Well, it’s a lot and it’s the exact same like they recorded some adult going UuuuUuU UuuUuuU for for ten seconds and then repeated it over and over again Since 

Todd: when did the cheapness of a movie bother us?

I 

Craig: don’t mind it. Ugh, I don’t mind it if there’s something good to grab on to, but there’s not, except for random people who just show up at their house. This lady. Do you want to talk about her? We have to get to the fact that this crazy random person 

Todd: just shows up at their house. The babysitter. The babysitter.

Craig: Like, okay, let me ask you a question. If you were just at home and somebody knocked on the door or just walked in, no, not knocked on the door, walked into your house and startled you. And you’re like, Hey, what’s up? And she’s like, Oh, I’m the babysitter. What would your next step be? 

Todd: She said mrs. Gittleson sent me over so the idea is that she Mrs.

Gittleson was the realtor you there in the real estate office Laurie Gittleson was the realtor and she had that male real estate agent Harold who we see you also So apparently she asked mrs. Gittleson to refer a babysitter and and shows up and says mrs. Gittleson sent me over I know, but that’s the implication when you say Mrs.

Giddleson sent me over and she says I’m Anne the babysitter and Lucy goes, oh, okay, then if Lucy’s not bothered, I’m not bothered. 

Craig: Okay, random lady who just showed up at my house. Oh, come on. As she’s being introduced, it keeps flash cutting back to the decapitated mannequin. Just to make it very clear.

With the green 

Todd: eyes. She has the same green eyes. Todd yes, it’s Todd. It’s artsy and it’s striking. Who is this woman? She’s the babysitter. Her name’s Anne Why 

Craig: is she there? What role does she play in this? 

Todd: Mrs. Giddleson sent her over her role as the babysitter Thinking too hard about this. Why are you thinking so deeply about this?

Because they 

Craig: go out of their way to make her shady and mysterious. Like, she, she won’t, like, she just shows up. The, every time, every time the camera is on her, it is an intense close up of her eyes. 

Todd: Yes, and she’s doing shady shit. Right, 

Craig: is she hypnotizing them, and like, and she’s being super shady, uh, and At one point, at one point the mom comes in and is talking to her and is like, You disappeared for a couple days, where were you?

And she’s like, uh I would see my parents and then the mom asks her a bunch of other questions that she just doesn’t answer like The the girl just stands there silently like she just looks at her like it just intense close ups of her eyes Just staring and the wife the wife walks in to another room where the husband is.

She’s like that girl’s weird 

Todd: Yeah, she doesn’t talk She never answers my questions . Oh, well she’s weird. But you know what? It’s never The people that my parents had explain, had babysitting me in the eighties, like you wouldn’t believe, like, uh, they were like, you know, 12 year old kids babysitting like, you know, eight year old kids.

It was, it was a different 

Craig: time. Oh, yeah. You know, you know, I grew up in a college town, so my parents would just leave with like 

Todd: random, like from the local fraternity, take somebody off of the 

Craig: street like, hey, , 

Todd: but apparently that’s how he spoke for too. But no, let him in the door, handed him a six pack and said Ab Adam.

Yeah, sure. 

Craig: Right. Uh, I don’t know, it just like it seems, it seems like she’s supposed to have something to do with the overall plot, but she doesn’t, the only thing that she has to do with it is that like that mannequin scene was just, Foreshadowing. Like, Why? No. Creepy foreshadow. I’m not okay with it. I’m not okay with it.

I don’t, 

Todd: Craig, I think you’re taking it all too literally. I mean, I don’t think that mannequin scene really happened in real life. The girl’s a ghost. The ghost girl’s standing outside this mannequin thing. The girl, the ghost girl’s trying to warn the boy about what’s going on. And, and she sees this thing happen.

So the ghost girl gets a supernatural foreshadowing of the woman’s going to be decapitated later. And sure enough it happens. That’s fine. So it all works. That’s fine. It alls together. It’s not nonsensical. 

But 

Craig: then why is the babysitter Mrs. Baylock, when she should just be Lori Strode? I don’t get it. Why is she, why is she creepy and suspicious?

There’s no reason for it. She’s 

Todd: not in on it. ’cause she knows about, she knows about the house, she knows about the house’s history. How do you know that? Because she’s a local so she’s just looking for an 

Craig: explanation She’s just a local goth girl who wants to hang out. 

Todd: She’s worried out. I would say she’s worried about the family But her worry about the family without her willingness to actually worry the family by speaking up about it Because that’s just what people do in these movies, right?

You’re writing your own 

Craig: movie in your head man 

Todd: Look if everybody in these movies Because they never do, because it would never be an interesting story, just flat out said why they’re there and what their motivation is, and, uh, told all the details and backstory to everybody that everybody needed to know, then it wouldn’t be a movie!

This is so typical of these ghost stories! It’s a lot of mysterious people coming in, who are cagey about why they’re there, and who seem suspicious and whatnot, and this is just another one of those girls! That’s just how these stories go. 

Craig: This is how every ghost story goes. No it isn’t! Oh my god, what do you watch?

Not every ghost story is full of red herrings that are just left unexplained. They’re just not. 

Todd: Many of them are. Well, here’s my explanation for her. All you need to know is, she’s a local girl, she was sent by the real estate agent to be their babysitter. But she, along with everybody else in the town, because we hear that pretty much everybody else in the town knows that this house is effed up.

But nobody’s really You have to 

Craig: is stop, is this not between the lines? 

Todd: It’s a hundred percent in your face. Everybody talks about how fucked up the house is. Everybody says, there’s a whole scene 

Craig: between the two Oh, I just called you Alan again. Listen, 

Todd: don’t interrupt me. This is the intensity of our 

Craig: argument that I’m calling you my partner’s name.

Todd: That’s okay. There was a whole scene between the two realtors that comes up shortly after this. Freudstein House. 

Craig: It was inevitable. What? 

Todd: That they’d want to leave the Freudstein property. Oak Mansion, Harold. How many times do I have to tell you that house is now called Oak Mansion? Yeah, give the bad product a new label.

Well, call it what you will, but it’s always been Freudstein’s house. They imply that nobody wants to be in there, nobody does the thing. Every townsperson they encounter when they talk about Freudstein, it’s like, Oh, he’s not buried here, oh, no, this, there’s all kinds of gossip, yada yada yada. Alright? But of course, they don’t tell the family, because that’s what happens.

When the guys from, you know, move into the Amityville house, nobody tells them the backstory of the house. When the people move into the Poltergeist house, nobody tells them it was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. If they did, the movie would be over, and it wouldn’t be interesting. So this is what’s happening.

So my story here is that Anne, of course, is the babysitter. And of course she knows more about the history of the house than she’s willing to let on, but she’s trying to, I don’t want to say trying to protect them, but she herself is curious. And so in the middle of the night, they hear voices, they hear noises, and eventually, uh, Norman comes downstairs and he finds Anne trying to pry up the boards.

Away from the door that leads to the basement and that’s creepy as fuck 

Craig: intensely for five seconds and then he walks away 

Todd: Yeah, now that’s weird. But, why is she trying to go down in the basement? You think it’s sinister, right? She obviously knows something’s down there. We know something’s going on down there because we saw a body get dragged in there and it’s really shady that the door’s been boarded over and now it’s especially shady that she’s trying to open it.

What, is she trying to release what’s in there? Or is she trying to assure herself? Is she trying to purify, cleanse the house? You know what, I mean, it’s just like she can’t necessarily be in this house and be comfortable until she investigates and figures out. If this is actually true what she might suspect about the house or not, so she goes down there I’m, not saying that’s the reading i’m saying it’s a perfectly acceptable reading at the end of the day once you’ve watched the whole movie Sure.

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: But my point is, it’s all creepy as fuck, and I think it was creepy. I think it gets the point across. Like, at this point in the movie, you got this creepy babysitter who’s trying to open this basement that we know is something horrible is down there. There’s this weird ghost girl who’s warning Bob, don’t go in the house, they’re in the house now.

There’s this weird accident that happened in there, and so next we have, you know, Norman, and he’s with Mr. Wheatley at the university, and they’re discussing Dr. Peterson, who was the guy who did the murder suicide thing in the house. Then there’s this weird in, um, I don’t know, I guess he’s like a grad student named Daniel

Yeah. Who comes in and he’s like, here you go. Here are all the medical reports, death certificates, lists of missing persons that Dr. Peterson had requested. He was kind 

Craig: of funny. Like, I, I kind of feel like he understood the assignment. Like, if you’re gonna just mm-hmm. , I don’t know. I think that it needs to be funny because it’s so.

Silly and over the top, but it is 100 percent straight. Like every single person is playing this straight as a razor. And that I think just doesn’t work for me. Like if you’re going to be, if you’re going to introduce this stupid babysitter character, like make her just crazy pants over the top shady. And this guy gets it, like he has, he is, he is, is insignificant.

He has nothing to do with anything at all, but he’s in several scenes. And he’s like. Igor, like, walk this way. Like, he’s so over the top. You’re like, bug eyed, creepy. 

Todd: I think he’s almost excited. He’s trying to be a professional, you know, sort of scholar type person, but he’s excited at the salaciousness of all this drama that’s been going on and the fact that this new guy’s here in town to investigate it.

But he’s trying not to get in his way too much and trying not to kind of let that on. But he can’t help it because it’s painted all over his face. At the end of the scene he goes, Hey, you wanna know where he hanged himself? There, from that railing. 

Craig: And he comes back later like the norm. Or Norman, or whatever his name is, comes back to the library, like, when it’s closed on the weekend or something, and Daniel, like, pops in, like, What are you doing here?

Like, like, he’s either been caught doing something, or he’s supposed to be guarding the books or something, But again, like, I appreciate this guy, because he’s kind of over the top creepy, but nothing comes of it. Nothing. That’s okay. 

Todd: It doesn’t have to. You know, just like, what comes of Igor? He’s just there.

It would be 

Craig: okay if anything came of anything, but nothing does, except for the fact that Norman finds a book that says, like, Dr. Freudstein on the front, and then Bob is like, out exploring the graveyard, and he finds the grave of Mrs. Freudstein. Bob 

Todd: is, like, playing with this girl. It’s like his imaginary friend.

It’s like he’s playing with a ghost. And that’s interesting and creepy. And they run across this gravestone with Mr. Mary Freudstein on it. And May comes up behind him and says, Oh, that’s the wife of Dr. Freudstein. Only it’s all a lie. She’s not really buried there. She’s not very 

Craig: dead. Like, I, I, fine, creepy, I get it, they’re ghosts, whatever.

Yeah. And they never, like, this, this woman that is escorting Mae around every once in a while, they never show her face, so you know it’s obviously Mrs. Freudstein or whatever. Mm hmm, mm hmm. Um, I, I’m not sure what they were going for with the name. Like, is this supposed to be a, a play on Frankenstein? Yeah.

I don’t know, whatever. I think so. Who cares? Norm, I call him Norm because we’re friends, um, Norm reads about Dr. Freudstein losing his medical license because he was like doing unconventional experiments or something. And then Lucy is cleaning the house and pulls away a rug to sweep or vacuum and finds Dr.

Freudstein’s tomb under their living 

Todd: room floor. Yes! 

Craig: An inch of dust. What? That’s awesome. Nobody has moved that rug in a century.

Oh god. I mean, if you’re willing to just read it, like, if you’re willing to read it as a scary story to tell in the dark. But that’s what it is. That just is like, ooh, there’s a tomb under the 

Todd: floor. But that’s what this it’s just a more literal version of, this house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground.

Right, but it’s, like, 

Craig: it’s so stupid. But they don’t even consider, first, first of all, like, she barely even… is affected by it, 

Todd: and… No, she’s freaked out by it. She says something 

Craig: to her husband, or she… Somebody just explains it away, like, People used to do that. Oh, it was 

Todd: hilarious. He says, This ain’t New York.

Most of the old houses in the neighborhood have tombs in them. I was like, no they don’t. This isn’t Italian writing about America. This doesn’t happen. The other thing 

Craig: that they don’t even take into consideration for a second is that they have a full… Basement, like, what is, what are you, And then it turns out that like, literally, it’s just a tomb covering over a stairwell to the basement.

Yes. Which doesn’t make any sense, but is funny nonetheless. 

Todd: It is entirely possible that there could be a body buried between the floor upstairs and the ceiling of the basement. But there’s not. There is. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I think that’s interesting when we learn that, too. But, I guess you don’t.

Here’s the other thing. Lucy herself, um, it’s been kind of established that she’s taking pills. And she’s worried that the pills have been giving her hallucinations. So again, this is another one of those typical haunted house tropes where the person’s hearing things, but they’re not even sure they trust themselves.

So, there’s a lot of her. hearing voices, especially after she uncovers the tomb, you know, she hears noises and all kinds of stuff, and there’s this really cool shot here. And you gotta say, this, this cinematography in there is pretty damn good. I don’t gotta say that. It’s fine. Well. I’m going to say it.

There’s a lot of sweeping camera angles. There’s a lot of one take shots that take that track through the whole house or track upstairs and downstairs. This sweeps around her and comes up over her head as she’s just surrounded by these sounds and they get louder and louder and she just sort of screams.

And Norman comes home to find her cowering in the corner. And then we get a shot of the pills, then pan down to her on the bed. And now she’s fine. It’s like he’s finally convinced her to take her pills. And this seems to be She seems to be feeling better. The lighting here is great and you know, he’s playing a great husband.

He’s like, okay, look, this ain’t New York. All the houses around here have tombs in them. Now we’re gonna go solve the cellar door mystery. Mm hmm. And so he goes down there with her and they’ve got a skeleton key to open it, but the key doesn’t work and eventually… They use a knife. This is kind of stupid.

It’s like it doesn’t turn, right? It’s like the door hasn’t been open in a long time or something And so he uses a knife kind of as a pry through the key to finally open it And there’s this awesome shot on the other side. I know 

Craig: why that’s just my favorite part of the movie, right? It’s like this this part where he’s unlocking the door and there are no stakes really like nobody knows What’s down there?

Well, and to see it from the other side, and to see it just kind of slowly, like, jostling open, 

Todd: And the dust kind of coming off of it. Oh. 

Craig: That was the most suspenseful part of the movie to me. It’s brilliant. Or, like, the lock, getting the lock open. I also thought, surely, this happens twice. Uh, the first time this happened, I was like, he’s gonna break that key.

Like, he’s prying it with a, a knife. I thought for sure he was going to break it, and then I also thought, and he’s also going to cut his own throat, like, that knife is going to slip and come out and kill him. So it was a very tense scene. Yeah, it was. I agree, but, anyway, what, they, I mean, they get in there, right?

But, like, do they even go down? 

Todd: He creeps down the stairs, he finds that woman’s ring. He finds 

Craig: Tits McGee’s ring. Uh, on the 

Todd: stairs. So we know that, yeah, that this is the place, and that she was down there. Um, and then a bat attacks him, and holy shit, this bat. That’s right! 

Craig: Okay, I kinda like this part too.

This is 

Todd: so great. This bat starts attacking her, and then he, he whacks it away from her and then it attacks him, and then it latches onto his hand. I liked it because it was 

Craig: so stupid. Oh, it Like, it latches onto his hand and he can’t get it, like, he’s trying so hard to rip it 

Todd: off. He runs upstairs, there’s blood, he’s shaking his hand to try to get the bat off and blood is going all over Bob’s 

Craig: face.

Oh, that’s hilarious. 

Todd: He stabs it and digs the knife into it, and still that bat’s alive, but like, you know, three times his body weight and blood is pouring 

Craig: out. I love when he stabbed the bat in the middle of its back, and like, five wounds opened all over the back of the bat. And it started bleeding! That was hilarious.

Todd: Just a little G on the back, he’s like… And all enough blood. And they’re like, but, it’s just coming No Well, okay, I guess we could just put a few more wounds in there. And he’s like, no, make them six. It’s 

Craig: so funny, cause in my, in my notes I have, Norm stabs hand bat. One of the dumbest scenes I’ve ever seen.

But now thinking back on it, I’m like, that was funny. That, 

Todd: that scene was funny. Oh, it was so entertaining. 

Craig: So the bat, the bat is the last straw. So they tell the realtor, or the guy at the realtor’s office that they want to move. And then you just see a random shot of Mae, again, the girl saying, don’t go inside, don’t go inside.

And then you see the… Realtor lady, go 

Todd: inside. It’s interesting because Mae is in there. It’s another house, it’s like a bedroom, but she’s surrounded by dolls. And, um, this woman, again, we know it’s Mrs. Freudstein by now, but it could be her mother, we don’t know. And she says, Mae, what were you doing at the window?

And she says, watching the house is all. And she says, oh, you know you can’t see it from here. And then she screams, don’t go inside. So anyway, Lori. The realtor comes into the house now, looking for the family. It’s late, and nobody’s home. But this is so creepy, this scene. Lori sees shadows passing across the window.

She walks through the house. She steps on that tomb, which breaks open, and her foot slips into it, and now her foot is caught. The lights go out. There’s a POV of that hand. Now we got like, again, that killer POV like we saw in the beginning. Grabbing a poker and, uh, from the fireplace and approaching her.

And there is a very slow, extremely bloody and cruel stabbing scene. Uh, stabs her in the chest twice, twists it around, then in her neck. This scene goes on for like two minutes. Of her just screaming while she’s being slowly stabbed. Blood gushing out of her neck, blood gushing out of the wounds. This is gory, and my understanding is that Fulci had to cut.

Quite a bit of this scene and I think it’s all been restored for us because this I can’t imagine this being any longer No, 

Craig: it hasn’t because initially it Included eye gouging because then once she’s dead and you see her get dragged away She’s in far worse shape than when 

Todd: we last saw her. I, I wondered about that.

Her face and head 

Craig: is messed up. Um, yeah, they asked him, I think it was, you know, I don’t know if this was released first in America or Italy, but the equivalent of the MPAA told him he needed to cut like the eye gouging and stuff, which he did willingly because he wasn’t satisfied with the effects anyway.

Todd: Yeah, right. It sounds like him. Ah, well, I didn’t like the effects anyway. So then, no. But it’s super gross. It’s super bloody. I liked that scene. 

Craig: It was good, and, uh, I liked the effects. But… Then the killer drags her into the cellar, and the next thing that we see is Anne cleaning up the blood. And Lucy comes in and sees her cleaning up the blood, and they don’t…

Talk about it. 

Todd: What? You know why? You know what I think it is? Why? Cause she thinks it’s the blood from the bat. 

Craig: Oh, okay. You think, you think Anne thinks it’s the blood 

Todd: from the bat? Yeah. I think Anne thinks it’s the blood from the bat too. It is very clear. 

Craig: It leaves, he drags the body that leaves. A blood trail.

Like, clearly a body has been dragged 

Todd: away. But Norman ran up the I mean, he must have left a huge blood trail when dragging that bat all the way upstairs and into the I think you’re right that we’re not meant to think that. I think it’s easily explained away knowing what we know now about Lucy. But at the time, the filmmaker is very definitely casting more suspicion on Lucy because Anne’s like, Hey, what a shame you didn’t come with us to the restaurant last night.

And we get more close up eyes, you know? Now, it’s like we’re supposed to suspect Anne stabbed Laurie and is cleaning up the mess. So, now we get a scene, uh, that Peterson is reading up about Dr. Freudstein, um, who had a penchant for doing illegal experiments. Norman tells Lucy that she he needs to go to New York to follow up on a hunch that his suicide was not connected to his research.

Craig: Doesn’t he say he needs to go? I felt like he said, he’s like, I need to go, he’s like, I need to go to New York. And she’s like, today? And, yeah, I got to. And then the next thing we see, he just goes to the library. The library’s not in New York. I 

Todd: don’t get it. He stops by there on the way. He doesn’t make it.

Norman’s at the library. Creepy Daniel pops in, being creepy. Suddenly, Bob is being chased, POV, through the woods, but it turns out it’s May. They’re just playing in the cemetery again. And she tells him again. She’s like, Don’t go in the house, Bob. And 

Craig: he says, I’m just gonna go in for a second, and then I’ll come back out.

Liar. He just goes in there and 

Todd: just stays! It’s so creepy though, it’s like burnt, in a way it’s kind of like burnt offerings. I’m on the edge of my seat for Bob here, because it’s like, you know, you’ve pressed your luck too much, and now you’re going back into the house, something really bad is gonna happen.

I 

Craig: hate Bob, so I wish something bad would 

Todd: happen to him. You wanted something bad. He 

Craig: is a cute kid. He actually looks like, like, an appearance. I can’t tolerate his voiceover, but an appearance. He’s a very cute little blonde haired, blue eyed kid. He reminds me of, uh… Kid of a friend of ours. We can talk about that later.

Aww. 

Todd: He was in several of these movies, like Manhattan Baby, which is another Fulci movie that came the year after this. He was in a movie before this. 

Craig: He’s only eight. As far as kid actors goes, he’s fine. He’s whatever. 

Todd: He was in Demons. You remember doing Demons? Uh, 

Craig: no. 

Todd: We loved it. It was, you know, the theater gets locked up and the woman turns into a demon.

Yeah. 

Craig: Yes, yes. I, I always get it and Night of the Demons mixed up. But yeah, I do remember the theater one. It was good. It 

Todd: was good. Norman’s doing research. He re Oh, he finds, 

Craig: right. And he finds a cassette tape. Yeah. It says Peterson Personal. What does that mean? Who is Peterson? 

Todd: Peterson is the guy. Oh, the doctor.

Yeah, the doctor. The doctor. Okay. Okay. It’s so typical. It’s like, oh, I lost all critical perspective. The signs, the warnings of this house. It draws me like an internal magnet and frightens me. It’s the, 

Craig: it’s the recording from Evil Dead. It is. It’s, I like that part. 

Todd: While he’s listening to this, we get this tracking shot through the house.

And it goes through the house, and it goes into the basement, we’re hearing his voice, and blood starts pouring over the tomb, which… Is magically back together again. Mm hmm. Body parts are strung all over the floor, on a table. We’re talking in the basement now. We’re seeing parts of the basement we’ve never seen before.

Mm hmm. It’s all very lurid and very, you know, very Fulci 

Craig: esque. Yeah, just dismembered bodies everywhere, including children, I 

Todd: think. It zooms in on a corpse that looks just like Bob. At the same point in which he says, on the tape, No, no, not the children! And then it cuts back to Bob. And I’m thinking, was this in Norman’s imagination?

Did Norman get a vision here? Or is this just for us, the viewer? I don’t 

Craig: know. I think that he was just envisioning what he was hearing. On the 

Todd: tape. But one of those is unmistakably Bob. Then he burns the tape! Yeah, then he burns the tape. I don’t know why the hell he burned the tape. That makes no sense.

No, it doesn’t make any sense. He has no need to cover this up. Except, perhaps, he’s being driven by the forces of the house to cover up the evidence so that the house can continue to keep doing what it’s doing. God, 

Craig: I don’t know. So much random stuff happens as Anne wanders around staring at stuff. Um, and then, I made a note of this because it just, I just cracked up when I saw it.

Somebody… is on the street for some reason and you see traffic going by and one of the cars is a station wagon with a big sign on the top that said school bus and that was the most amusing thing that I had ever seen. Oh my gosh, so funny. Um, but then Bob finds the cellar door open and his car, the car that he always has with him is missing and then it cuts away from that and then Anne can’t find Bob, but hears that crying from the cellar, so she starts to go down to the 

Todd: cellar.

But this is really jarring, because Anne seems like a totally different person now. Like, she’s no longer creepy Anne, who barely talks. Now she just seems like a normal girl investigating the basement. True. You know, like any teenager in any slasher movie we’ve ever seen. I found that really jarring.

Except… I think it tracks with my earlier explanations that Anne isn’t really creepy. The movie is just sort of sending us this red herrings that she is. But she goes into the basement, she hears the sobbing. I did hear sobbing, I made a note here. But now she doesn’t seem so sinister, right? The door closes behind her, and of course she’s trapped.

And now we have a POV of that same hand holding a knife coming up the stairs. And we see that Bob suddenly… Is on the other side in the kitchen, like Anne’s calling for him, and suddenly it’s Bob, but he’s not anywhere in the basement at all. Right. So he picks up a monkey doll and a plastic gun and says, Okay, Yogi, we’re gonna go rescue Anne.

I thought that was super cute. Oh, I didn’t 

Craig: see that at all. That’s 

Todd: funny. But too late. On the other side, Anne gets sliced really brutally on both sides of the neck, and then that knife just saws through it. This is, again, very Fulci esque, but up close and just gross. 

Craig: Yeah. I like, the practical effect looked good.

It was good. The practical effects throughout are, are pretty good. I mean, you know, stylistic in the way that they typically are in these movies. Uh, 

Todd: but I like it. 

Craig: I liked it. Right, then silence and then Bob goes down to the cellar and like he walks all the way down the stairs and then Well the 

Todd: door opens behind him.

Bob walks into the, the kitchen and he’s standing there kind of looking around for Anne and behind him the door slowly kind of creaks open. Yeah. And he turns and stares at it. I mean, this is so creepy. I’m thinking Bob’s gonna die. He walks down the stairs, he calls, calls for Anne. And as he gets to the bottom, he turns around, hears a noise, and he sees her head roll down the stairs.

Runs up the stairs and makes it out just as the door almost closes, but his hand gets stuck. So this door, you know, like, I guess is being supernaturally controlled. There’s a P. O. V. again coming after him slowly, but he gets out just in time. And then Lucy comes home and finds Bob crying in the room, and he tells her what happened and she doesn’t believe it.

So they go back to 

Craig: the cellar together. I’m like, 

Todd: why? You were the worst mom in the world. Your son has been traumatized by this horrible thing happening in the basement. Now you’re going to take him down there with you while you investigate? Well, 

Craig: they don’t, they don’t find anything except for, like, Bob briefly sees a pair of glowing eyes.

So they just go back upstairs. And then Norm is in a different cemetery looking for Freud’s tomb. Yeah, which makes no sense because it’s in his living room and he knows that And it also makes no sense because the cemetery manager comes and talks to him and is like we’re closed You’re closed on Sunday afternoon.

When is the cemetery open? So f ing stupid. Even what the sense. Oh 

Todd: you two

Well, you’re not the first. Look, friend, I came over 200 miles to see this tomb, and I want to see it. Well, you shouldn’t have bothered. There’s no Dr. Freudstein here. But, according to the official records, he was buried here. The official records don’t mean a thing. It’s a lot of bunk that Freudstein’s buried here.

Just gossip. Okay, first of all, if the official records say that… He was buried here. The official records are not gossip.

I don’t, I think this is baffling and there’s no good explanation for all this bullshit of his investigation. No, they should have 

Craig: cut that scene entirely. It doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd: No, it’s, it’s weird. Yeah, 

Craig: okay, so then Bob’s upset that Anne is dead, but Lucy’s like, Don’t worry, she’ll come back. So he goes, so he goes back to the cellar looking for her.

Yes, I love it. And the cellar door closes 

Todd: again. But he walks downstairs, he calls out to Anne, he says, Anne! Mommy says you’re not dead. Is that true? 

Craig: And he sees the glowing eyes again. And I really don’t understand what’s happening here because in a bunch of places, like, are we, I assume we’re to believe that because there’s only one.

Thing down there, right? 

Todd: Honestly. I’m sorry, I know this sounds like a cop out, but I think some of this is in Bob’s head. Okay. I do. It’s a dark basement, I’m seeing glowing eyes everywhere. I really do. Oh my god. 

Craig: Maybe it’s all in Bob’s head, okay? I don’t know. It’s the best I can 

Todd: do. 

Craig: So Bob runs back up and he’s banging on the door and he can’t get out and Lucy can’t open it.

How is it locked? 

Todd: Supernatural. This is the thing, the door, we’ve seen this happen five times before. You’re not surprised by, by the sixth time, are you? God, but it’s locked. 

Craig: And she tries to Jimmy the lock again. She just breaks the key. It’s so stupid. And I have in my notes. This isn’t tense. It’s just annoying.

Todd: Oh, I thought it was tense. 

Craig: Oh my God. It made me so angry. And so she, she breaks the key in the lock and then she tries to Jimmy the door open with a knife and she breaks the knife. Oh 

Todd: no. Okay. Let’s talk about this scene. Can I, can I narrate this? Bob. Okay. So Norman, there’s a shadow that passes through the behind her and comes over her and she spins around, but it’s Norman.

So he’s home. Yeah. And she’s like, He’s, he’s trapped in there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Norman says, Okay, uh, Bob, keep away from the door. He picks up an axe and he’s gonna axe through the door. Bob says, Okay, I will. And the instant he says that, that creepy hand, finally, grabs Bob’s head and slams it against the door, just as Bob sends the axe through it.

And it comes out right by his head. My God, dude. That 

Craig: was good. How do you think they filmed that? I don’t know, but 

Todd: holy shit, this was It all happened

so fast, that it’s like you, I literally screamed at the screen. It 

Craig: was, it was pretty cool, because it was really close, like, it just like shaved the tip of his nose. And then it happened again! It happens again, just 

Todd: hits the back of him, and of course, Norm on the other side is oblivious that Bob’s head is against the door right now being pressed by this hand, and I don’t know if it was the dad in me or what, but I was just like, oh my god, if this guy ends up axing his own kid’s head through the door trying to get him out of there, this would be like the most Horrible thing I’ve ever seen and I would respect the movie so much.

I know 

Craig: It would have been a whole different movie. I know. Okay, so then I say in my notes Norm knows that Freud’s seen killed Sheila 

Todd: God He’s suddenly exposition Norman he knows everything now about exactly what’s going on He needs human victims To renew his cells, it’s how he stays alive. Like, where the f did any of this come from?

Who is Sheila? Why do I, why 

Craig: do I have, I don’t know. 

Todd: I don’t have Sheila written. I don’t know. Maybe you misheard 

Craig: something. Norm Nosy killed her, I guess. Maybe he just made 

Todd: that up. I don’t know. Somehow, I think it was maybe when the axe came to the back half of the kid’s head. It’s very unclear, but Norm has chopped off this guy’s hand.

And so, um, what we now see as Freudstein stumbles down the stairs with a stump, which allows them to finish axing through the door and grab Bob. And 

Craig: it’s at this point… I mean, if we hadn’t figured this out already, we figure out that that childlike crying has been coming from him the whole time and he’s doing it again and it’s so weird and I hate it.

And he’s a weird zombie thing like, yeah, he’s 

Todd: like a mummified guy. I 

Craig: don’t have a point of comparison. Like I don’t know what’s compared. Yeah. It’s 

Todd: weird. It’s almost like a mummy in a way. Yeah. But it’s creepy. Yeah. Oh, it is. It 

Craig: is creepy. And may. From the ether, I guess. Screams, No! And then Bob screams, And then there are bodies.

It’s everywhere. 

Todd: Mhm. The bodies of the previous people, Anne and Laurie, are both hanging there. He sees Anne’s head on the floor. That’s when he explains 

Craig: the whole, he needs human victims to renew his cells, and that’s the only explanation you’re gonna get. Like, how he’s doing it, what that’s all about, who cares.

I don’t care. No, I don’t care either. That’s fine. But then, Norman fights him briefly, and then he reaches over, then he reaches over to the table of bloody knives,

and he grabs one of the bloody knives and stabs Freudstein with it. And what can only be described as shit and maggots pour out of the wound. Yeah! But then this surprised me, then. I, I have to say I was actually really kind of surprised by the end. I, I, uh, as much as I continue to hate this movie, the ending was kind of satisfying because it was unexpected to me.

Freudstein rips Norman’s throat 

Todd: out. Yeah. While Lucy and Bob cower in the corner and do absolutely nothing. 

Craig: Yeah. And then they run up the steps to the tombstone and she is trying so hard to move it as the killer is coming up behind… And I thought for sure she was going to, but she doesn’t. He pulls her down the stairs and then it fades to black briefly.

Oh man. And then you see her body on the floor. So I assume she’s dead. You don’t 

Todd: see her get killed. You see her head hitting every single stair on the way down. Again, Fulci, man. He just, he just wants you to see everything up really close. Like seriously. 12 hits of her head on the stairs, this camera patiently tracking close up to her head all the way down while Bob is screaming.

And I mean, look, it is a stupid movie, right? But even stupid movies like this can get to me at sometimes. And I, again, I don’t know if it’s the dad in me or whatever, but this poor kid has seen his dad’s throat get ripped out and now his mom is being dragged down the stairs. And yeah, he was annoying. Fine, 

Craig: I’ll give you that.

The ending is okay. It 

Todd: really upset me seeing the trauma that this poor kid was going through with his parents one by one being taken away by this thing and almost nothing he can do about it. He’s trapped. So Freudstein is now going after Bob and Bob struggles to get through the opening and he grabs Bob just as May’s hand comes into view from the other side, pulling that tomb apart and they pull Bob out through there and now suddenly…

He’s not being pursued anymore. Like everything kind of drops away. Suddenly they’re on the other side of the tomb, and everything’s quiet, and Mae and that woman, who again, I’m pretty sure is Mrs. Freudstein. Yeah, we see her face, 

Craig: and it for sure is her. This is the first time we see her face, and we had seen her face because there was a photograph on her tombstone, so it for sure is her.

Todd: And she says, Mae? Time to go home and remember your manners. Now that Bob is saying, show him you can act like a Freudstein, you know some other guest is surely destined to drop in. And the mom takes both of their hands and walks them both out down the street. And there’s a baffling quote at the end. Yeah.

From Henry James. No one will ever know whether children are monsters, or monsters are children. Whatever. I don’t know. Whatever. So, so Bob’s dead. Right Bob’s dead. Yeah, he never made it out and then you know his body what we saw You know in that earlier sort of premonition, that’s how he ended up. Okay, you know, that’s how I interpret that I think that was actually quite clever that we saw that earlier in the movie.

Yeah, and then Presumably Freud seems gonna keep doing what he’s doing and he’s got to be some kind of supernatural entity not just a guy because of all that stuff and I thought it honestly like All that satisfied me, you know, whatever weirdness as far as how did this guy know this and what are these townspeople talking about, whatever, like, whatever, like, it just kind of slipped away.

I felt like this was the most coherent and, uh, in a way, logical of all of Fulci’s movies and it’s basically a very standard style Haunted House story. Like we’ve said several times in this description, almost every little thing in this happens in almost every Haunted House story. But this one, I thought, built good suspense, had a lot of intrigue, you know, opened up a lot of threads.

Some of them didn’t end up getting satisfactorily answered, but many of them did, I think. Had this ghost in the beginning warning Bob, you know, because this has happened to her, and it’s happened to Mrs. Freudstein. I don’t know how many times we’ve seen that. Before but I thought it was a creepy effective and super gory Uh and shocking and great cinematography.

I really liked it It’s not a modern masterpiece, but god, I just the second time I watched I enjoyed it even more Honestly, I thought way better than the first in this trilogy city of the living dead which was just like a mass chaos fever dream that made no sense and was just Bizarre. I don’t know why you hate it so much.

I really don’t. I 

Craig: don’t know, maybe I was just in a bad mood, but I don’t… I didn’t like it. Like, it was difficult for me to keep watching it. I had the movie going on one screen, and I was… I was looking at TMZ, and like… 

Todd: This isn’t even a slow burn, like, you know… I thought it was 

Craig: painfully, painfully boring.

It’s too many loose ends. for me. Too many. It, it, it makes me mad. It, it angers me. Like, you’re, you’re setting things up and then not paying that off. And I can forgive that. 

Todd: Which ones? 

Craig: Like, the 400 that I listed in the beginning! When I asked you, explain this, explain this, explain this, and you couldn’t.

Explain 

Todd: that doll? Yes! What? 

Craig: Who cares? Then why introduce it? Why make it seem like it’s gonna be a thing and then it’s not 

Todd: a thing? It’s a ghost, it’s a ghost girl’s doll that he brought home and that creeped out the mom. Boom. Done. Okay. What’s next? Yeah. What else can I explain 

Craig: for you? Why did multiple people…

See Norman there, and why was he cagey about having a photograph of that 

Todd: house? I don’t think he was cagey. I really don’t think he knew he had a photograph of that house. I think some of this is just fate type 

Craig: weird stuff. I’m telling you, you, you’re, I can understand, I can understand, no, I can understand why you like this movie because you’re writing it yourself.

That’s why you like it, because you’re writing it yourself. You are writing a movie that doesn’t exist. All, 

Todd: you’re filling in holes. Why can’t you accept this explanation? It’s… Why can’t you accept this explanation? Does it not make sense to you? No, I’ll accept 

Craig: your… Made up reasons, but you’re just making them up!

Like… 

Todd: Ha ha ha ha ha! Just because the movie doesn’t explicitly answer that question doesn’t mean that we can’t find an acceptable answer to it. 

Craig: I understand, I’m just saying, don’t establish mystery to then… Leave it hanging like that that that irritates me like don’t make it don’t make it seem like it’s well It’s 

Todd: like burnt offerings, you know, yes, that’s fine 

Craig: and I accept your interpretation of it But there’s nothing in the movie that tells us that that’s the case in the movie in burnt offerings We are 

Todd: told that we’re told what that the that the 

Craig: house is a vampire and that it lures people in and that it Like possesses them and sucks their life force and kills them and that’s how the house 

Todd: thrives We are told here here.

We are told that in the cassette tape. I’ve lost all critical perspective The signs the warnings of this house Freudstein’s house that anguish crying And Sheila smiles. What can I do to make her believe me? Maybe I’m insane. Yes. This is all unreal. Freudstein’s house draws me like an infernal magnet. And frightens me.

How many have wandered innocently into the waiting spiderweb? How many more are doomed to follow? This is just one of those things, it happens again and again and again. The house draws people in, they succumb to Dr. Feldstein, the mess gets cleaned up, and it just again and again and again keeps happening.

Craig: Okay, that, well, I can’t refute your cassette tape evidence. That is good evidence. I don’t know. I just, I didn’t like, that’s, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I really am. I, I, I didn’t, and I would not recommend it. Like, we, at the, at the end, we usually say, well, I might recommend it. No, I wouldn’t. 

Todd: I, I, Well, we could not dis, I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with you more about a movie.

In part, I’ve never been so shocked that you’ve been so unwilling to give, So many things have passed. There have been far worse movies that you’ve been waving away. Oh, it’s okay. It’s just a dumb movie. Oh, this is typical of these movies and oh, like whatever. It’s just a look like and I cannot believe that this movie which is so skillfully made and so intriguing in my opinion.

And is so typical. Like, it’s not even groundbreaking. It is so typical of a Haunted House movie. You’re not willing to wave those things away. It’s just so bizarre, Craig. I don’t see it. But I don’t know. We’ll keep our friendship. It’s fine. 

Craig: I guess. Maybe. Uh, no. Like, Again, I don’t recommend it because I, aside from you, I can’t think of anybody that I know that would like this movie.

Wow. But if you’ve seen it, or if you watch it, Take a side, because I’m sure I’m going to win. And let us know in the comments at one of our many places. 

Todd: I’ve gotta say to you, we’re gonna have to do one more of these, because City of the first, this is the third, the second one in the trilogy, the Beyond, is widely regarded as one of Fulci’s, like, masterpieces, by people who acknowledge that Fulci has made a lot of garbage, and a lot of baffling, weird shit, that the second one, the Beyond, is held in very high regard.

The first movie, you know, it’s called the Gates of Hell trilogy. The first movie, uh, we did here on the podcast. It’s called City of the Living Dead. It was released on videocassette in the U. S., uh, called the Gates of Hell. And, uh, it’s like, you know, a priest, uh, hangs himself, and a seance happens, and just, like, all the signs point to suddenly the Gates of Hell opening.

And then it culminates in, like, a tomb, where they’re literally closing the Gates of Hell, and it seems like they’re closed. Didn’t we do that? We did, yeah, yeah. We, we didn’t like the movie at all, we thought it was a bunch of… joking 

Craig: around nonsense. Oh! That doesn’t sound familiar at all! 

Todd: Oh my god. I think, I agree that movie was incoherent nonsense.

This movie is nothing like it. This movie is like frickin Steven Spielberg compared to that movie. The second movie in the series, The Beyond, is about some people who are in a house. It’s another sort of Hounded House story, but this house is built over the gates of hell. And of course they’re open again, or they never got closed in the first movie.

Interestingly enough, this third movie in it, I, I, I detected no gates. Or hell, in this entire movie, so it’s kind of weird that it’s the third in the trilogy. But he said that he wanted to do something Lovecraftian. This is actually, it’s what he said about all three of these movies. The first one, I want to do something Lovecraftian.

This third one, I want to do something Lovecraftian, but not in a typical way. And uh, I don’t know if I really see the Lovecraft in this, but you’re, you’ve probably read more of Lovecraft than I do. 

Craig: Well, mad scientist, yeah, trying to find eternal life, yeah, I mean, I say, yeah, I, I, I am not a Lovecraft scholar.

I like the idea of Lovecraft more than his actual work. He’s really hard to 

Todd: read. Well, anyway, this has been one of my favorite episodes so far. Oh, God. I’m glad we had this opportunity to battle it out. It’s grudge match. It’s like steel cage grudge match.

Uh, thank you patrons for selecting this movie to torture craig with I say mission accomplished I couldn’t thank you enough for picking the right movie If you listeners would like to join the party and become a patron as well Just go to patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and that just five bucks a month or 10 if you’re feeling really generous gets you access to that and all this behind the scenes stuff that we’re relying more and more on our patrons to help us put this podcast together.

If you want to have that level of influence, please consider joining the crew. And also, uh, you’ll get our unedited phone calls, which are even more salacious. Yeah. Just controversial. Full of 

Craig: curse words and. Dirty jokes and everything you can think 

Todd: of. Blood and gore. Yeah, everything the MPAA makes us cut out

for. But we appreciate your support nonetheless, wherever it comes from. The best thing you can do is share this with a friend, or go to one of the websites where you enjoy this podcast and write a review. Let the rest of the world know how much you enjoy us, as long as all the comments are positive. If not, forget about it.

Listen 

Craig: to something else! Listen 

Todd: to someone else’s lame ass podcast, you pansy. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week, we tackle a pandemic favorite. This week’s flick is a highly metaphorical film about class and capitalism that resonated with people caught quarantined in their homes in 2020, when they had nothing better to do than watch Netflix and contemplate the future of humanity. How does it hold up in 2023? Have a gander at our hot take on The Platform. Cheers to the capitalists out there!

The Platform (2019)

Episode 360, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: This week, Craig picked the movie. The movie that we’re doing is the twenty… 2020? 2019, right? It’s all good. The platform’s somewhere in the vicinity of 2019. I do remember, though, this movie was kind of in discussion along the same lines as The Tiger King.

Remember when we were all in pandemic mode, and we were all locked in our houses for the first time, and everybody kind of started watching Netflix a little bit more, and The Tiger King became kind of a big… Thing that we were all discussing I feel like it really hit a big pandemic wise because it was so weird and this movie I do remember people discussing it like though.

There’s this movie out on Netflix called The Platform You got to watch it It has a lot to say about what we’re going through right now or something like that At least it kind of seemed to resonate at the time. So I remember hearing about it. I never watched it until today, but you recommended it this week and you had seen it before right?

Craig: Yeah, I think I’ve been talking about it since I heard that it was coming out and, like, talking to you about it, like, this is something that we should keep our eyes on. This is something we should do, but as is often the case, like, I get really excited about these movies and I might throw the name out there or whatever, but then they come out and we’ve already got, you know, a bunch of stuff that we’re doing or whatever.

So I just watch them on my own. After that, I kind of forget about it. So, so when, when we decided that I was going to pick this week. You know, I was, you know, racking my brain and this, uh, came to me because I did think that it would be interesting to talk about. Yes, I’ve seen it before. Uh, I don’t know, probably a year ago.

Um, but, uh, even watching it again, I think it’s interesting. But when I was watching it, I was also thinking, I wonder what Todd’s 

Todd: thinking. Like… What did you think I would be thinking? I’m curious. 

Craig: Do you really? You want me to tell you? Okay. I’ll tell 

Todd: you if you’re right. I’ll be honest. 

Craig: I am afraid that you will think that this movie is pretentious and preachy.

Todd: No, I’ll knock that right off at the pass. I don’t think it’s pretentious and preachy. It doesn’t hide its theme very well. It’s very No, it is 

Craig: bold on its face. Yeah. 

Todd: If 

Craig: you don’t get this allegory, you are in a coma because it is so obvious. 

Todd: But that in a way kind of makes it a little less pretentious. A lot of times, like, I don’t remember, recently we were talking about pretentiousness.

The Bad Batch you were all pissy about. That was a lot. Because I felt like the Bad Batch was almost the opposite. It was being very vague about things and it was… Well, that’s not true. No, I’m totally wrong. I, but I get 

Craig: what you’re saying, and I agree with you. Like, it just seemed like it was trying to be confusing for the sake 

Todd: of it.

Yes. And this isn’t trying to be confusing. No. It ends up like… Ambiguous, you know, at the end, you can’t really say for sure as far as plot goes what, what exactly is happening. Why is this happening? There are a lot of little unsolved mysteries in this whole affair that you’re not going to get a resolution for at the end Uh, once again, I don’t think the movie is really that concerned with giving us an answer to those mysteries In fact, I, I read somewhere I don’t know if it’s the IMDB trivia or somewhere that the director had actually shot an alternate ending that he didn’t end up going with because he decided he liked this ending because it was a little more ambiguous and you could kind of fill in the blanks.